Bhopal: Around 28 government school teachers donned waiter’s hat and served food to chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and other guests at a state-organised mass marriage ceremony in Singrauli. They were not doing so out of free will but in compliance with district education officer’s order issued on district collector’s order. The incident is indicative of the status of improving education in government’s priority list. Even the poor result of MP Board of Secondary Education’s class X and XII has failed to break the slumber of the state government and the bureacracy. In fact, district education officer’s order also assigned duties to different teacher, like who will serve puris and who will serve vegetables. Few were marked for serving water and other few for placing ‘pattals’ and ‘donas’ before the guests.
A teachers’ association had protested against the decision. The association said that despite state government declaration prohibiting utilization of teachers’ services in non-teaching work, the teachers were deployed at the function and asked to do the job of waiter. Contacted, minister of state for school education Deepak Joshi said that it was wrong to ask teachers to serve food. He, however, said that a probe would be ordered to verify the allegation and assured of strict action against those responsible for it.