Mumbai: Teachers involved in assessment of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) board examinations have been exempted from electoral duties for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Teachers had been complaining that if they were to be deployed for election duties, then assessment of answer scripts would get stretched, which could delay declaration of SSC and HSC results.
This would create panic among students and would have derailed the entire admission process for junior and higher colleges. Teachers will now have to complete assessment on time to ensure that students’ careers are not impacted. Members of Shikshan Parishad and Mumbai Junior College Teachers’ Union (MJCTU) had been sending reminders to the state government for scrapping the order tasking teachers with poll duty.
Shivnath Darade, Secretary of Shikshan Parishad, said, “We appealed to the State to exempt those teachers who are involved in assessment work from any kind of electoral duties. Teachers need time to focus on paper corrections, instead of managing poll booths.’’
Teachers are assigned various electoral duties like serving as zonal officers, electoral officers, assistant electoral officers and presiding officers at different polling booths. Most of the polling booths are set up in various government schools and junior colleges. Teachers are involved in election duty from April to May, in addition to managing their regular academic work.Teachers claimed that they want to focus on completing paper correction in April and May as it is a crucial period just before the declaration of results in June. Deepa Naik, a teacher, said, “Board examinations get
over by end of March and we get only two months to complete assessment of answer papers. In this period if we are tasked with electoral duties then we will not be able to complete the paper correction work within the stipulated deadline.”The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) has informed teachers to focus only on assessment work. A senior officer of MSBSHSE, Mumbai division, said, “We are concerned about completing the assessment work, so that SSC and HSC results are declared on time. This is to ensure that students do not face any inconvenience.
