The Census 2027 exercise initiated by the Government of India and the Drug and Socio-Economic Survey launched by the Punjab Government have become a bone of contention between government school teachers and the district administration.
Government school teachers assigned to survey and Census duties have termed the exercise “political” as Punjab is expected to go to polls in the coming months.
“The district administration has appointed a large number of teaching and non-teaching employees of the School Education Department for these duties, which amounts to treating the department like field clerks rather than educators. More than 70 per cent of school staff in the district has been engaged in field surveys. When are students going to study and what will happen to classroom teaching?” asked Ashwini Awasthi, state finance secretary-cum-district president of DTF Punjab.
A delegation of government teachers, including district general secretary Gurbinder Singh Khaira, district finance secretary Harjap Singh Bal and district press secretary Rajesh Kumar Parashar, met the Deputy Commissioner on Tuesday and said that while teachers are being compelled to perform administrative duties, students continue to wait for them in schools.
Teachers alleged that nearly a dozen departments with around three lakh employees are functioning in the district, but the administration is assigning a disproportionate share of duties to the School Education Department alone.
“Even categories exempted by the Centre and the state government have not been spared from Census duties. On the contrary, administrative officials have directly and indirectly pressured staff working under them to perform Census work without justification, which is highly condemnable,” Awasthi alleged.
Teachers have also strongly demanded exemption for election staff engaged in duties such as booth level officers (BLOs) and Sector Officers from Census-related work. “It amounts to harassment of teachers and employees of the School Education Department, who have been continuously performing non-academic duties for the last six months,” said Jermanjit Singh.
