No non-academic work for teachers in school hours, says Haryana min ‘Will Be Paid If Assigned Other Duties’

ASSEMBLY SESSION

No non-academic work for teachers in school hours, says Haryana min

‘Will Be Paid If Assigned Other Duties’

Ajay.Sura@timesgroup.com

Chandigarh:21.12.2021

The teaching staff in the state-run schools of Haryana would not be assigned any nonteaching work during the school hours. The state has also decided that teachers would be paid, in case they are assigned any non-teaching work by the state authorities in addition to their teaching work, during the non-school hours.

State education minister Kanwar Pal provided this information while replying to a question by Meham MLA Balraj Kundu during the ongoing winter session on Monday. Kundu had asked the reasons for which teachers in schools are being assigned non-teaching work against the rules and despite the Supreme Court instructions.

The minister said in addition to their primary duty of teaching, teachers would be required to undertake only statutory duties like election and census work. For any other work that teachers may be asked to do, deputy commissioners or any other department will seek the prior approval of the director general school education, who would then ensure that it has the least adverse effect on teaching. The minister said instructions in this regard were issued in September 2005 to all administrative secretaries, department heads and deputy commissioners in the state.

“It has also been decided that for any duty other than teaching, which teachers may be assigned assigned/required to undertake, they should be asked to do this duty only after school hours and they should be paid honorarium suitably by the department concerned for undertaking the work so allowed by the education department,” the minister stated. Recently, teachers were assigned survey work for the Haryana government’s much touted project Parvivar Pahchan Patra (PPP). Those connected to teachers’ associations had informed TOI that in most parts of the state teachers were not paid for the survey work done by them for PPP. Some teachers were even assigned work in the state revenue department’s survey regarding updation of land falling under “lal dora”. Apart from this, teachers are even deployed for voter verification-related duties.

However, Haryana School Lecturers Association president Satpal Sindhu said teachers should not be given any kind of non-teaching duty even after the school hours as it “affects teaching work because teachers have to prepare the lesson plan for the next day”.