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Bihar education dept to resume work from April 20
While senior officials will be required to attend office every day, the junior staff and the contractual staff will be divided into three groups, with only one of the groups required to report on a given day.
The education department, with all its directorates and offices, will resume work from April 20 based on a revised schedule in accordance with the guidelines from the Ministry of Home Affairs, officials said on Friday.
While senior officials will be required to attend office every day, the junior staff and the contractual staff will be divided into three groups, with only one of the groups required to report on a given day.
An office order in this regard was issued on Friday by additional chief secretary, department of education, RK Mahajan, with a clear directive that all safeguards, including the standard operating procedure (SOP) for social distancing, must be adhered to in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As per the office order, the junior staff, divided into three groups, will report on specified days – one group from April 20-23, second from April 24 to 28, and the third from April 29 to May 3. The second phase of lockdown ends on May 3.
Bihar State Educational Infrastructure Development Corporation (BSEIDC), which caries out construction work for schools, colleges and universities across the state, will also start working on projects in different parts from April 20. This will help create employment and develop necessary infrastructure.
The functioning of the directorates will mean that the department will get fully functional down the line even as school teachers, appointed through the panchayati raj system since 2006, remain on strike for the last two months.
Terming the appeal from education minister, Krishna Nandan Verma, to the teachers to join work as a ‘cruel joke’, they have been demanding talks with the government on their demands and withdrawal of punitive action against them. However, the government does not seem to be in a mood to hold talks at this time, when the state is grappling with the pandemic.
Schools and colleges are unlikely to open in near future. The government has already promoted all the students of class 1-11. The class 10 board exams have already been completed in the state and the evaluation will be completed once the lockdown period ends, while class 12 results were announced before the lockdown was implemented.
