Nagpur: CBSE school teachers in Nagpur are grappling with multiple academic responsibilities even as govt pressure mounts to register for Census duty else face FIR, leaving many stressed and hassled. TOI had reported about how Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has threatened FIR against various CBSE school principals and teachers, for not sharing complete staff data for enrolment in Census duty.“Why is the govt obsessed with allotting Census duty to teachers of private unaided schools? Shouldn’t teachers, non-teaching staff of all govt and grant-in-aid schools and colleges be used up first?” said a CBSE school principal requesting anonymity. “After that they should be using up staff from govt offices from both the central and state organizations,” the principal added.CBSE schools say they face strong headwinds as the most crucial part of the academic session is currently going on. “Civic officials handling the Census duty feel that all teachers are sleeping at home because of vacations in April and May. In fact April is when we have internal exams, then a new session starts for Class 9 and 10, we have teachers evaluating board answer papers and some involved in preparing for admissions,” said another principal. “Apart from this we began our Class 9 now without printed textbooks and Class 10 will have a second board exam for which again we will be involved. I have teachers arriving at school at 8am and constantly working without rest. Even after they reach home they are connected on WhatsApp trying to finish up pending work, as April is extremely hectic for us,” said the principal.Now even kindergarten have received intimation from authorities to start sending names of staff. Teacher of one such school said, “We get hardly 20-day vacation between results and new admission work. Now even in that time we are being threatened with police cases if we don’t work for Census duty. This is completely unfair to just pull up anybody and threaten them to work for something which they never signed up for.”Hampering the schools’ collective response is the presence of multiple school associations, each with their own power axis and sphere of influence. Schools, to be on the safe side, become members of almost all such associations so that they never ‘miss the bus’. But this also means that there is no collaborative action which leaves teachers in a state of anxiety. In the past associations have approached court and even aggressively followed up with govt over various issues, but they lack the “nuisance value” according to a school trustee. “CBSE school teachers won’t hit the streets and sit on dharna for hours or gherao any minister to press for their demands. So there is no perceived political threat to the govt, hence nobody listens to us. Our only recourse is the judiciary and we are exploring those options,” the trustee added.
