Pune: For years, teaching jobs rested on a simple thought that students deserve the fullest attention. But in Maharashtra, for thousands of teachers, the school day these days doesn’t begin or end with the school bell. Instead, many start their second job working as BLOs for the state’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), going from door-to-door updating electoral rolls, before the students start arriving.After teaching for six hours, the BLOs are once again out following up with citizens they couldn’t meet during the day because they were away at work. With thousands of names on the list, poor internet connection in remote areas, and a syllabus to complete for students entirely dependent on them, many said the mounting workload is exhausting, leaving little time for family, making them work through illness and, in one reported case, linked to a teacher’s suicide.Women teachers say their contact numbers are made public and calls come from people at unearthly hours with complaints against them to their supervisors if they fail to pick up while in class. “Everything is expected of teachers except teaching,” is the increasingly bitter refrain.A cluster head from Vidarbha region said, “I have 10 schools under me. All are suffering. After Covid-19, it was a struggle to bring students to their expected competency, especially first-generation learners. But now we feel govt has tied our hands. All we think about throughout the day is completion of the task at hand. Teaching has become secondary. We are not saying ‘no’ to work. But at least apply your mind when you give us work. Teaching is our primary objective. If that is suffering, what is the point of being teachers? ” she said.Another teacher spoke about how he is the only teacher in his ZP school with classes from I to IV with 31 students and has over 1,200 forms to fill as a BLO. A teacher from Jalgaon said that his school has 92 students and two teachers, both working as BLOs.“Our school starts at 10.30am and goes on till 5pm. We live in a place where most people are farmers or agricultural labourers. I wake up at 7am and go for a round before my school duty starts. Then I again walk around the village till 7pm because I have to finish 800 forms. If it rains, our work becomes really difficult. Sometimes agricultural labourers go in search of work early in the morning and return late. Chasing them is hard. My work doesn’t end at home because I have to upload all the information collected. The internet is patchy in the village,” the teacher said.A teacher from Indapur said that they received an order on Tuesday enlisting many of their names for assisting the BLOs in data entry. “It just says that we will be helping out in digitising the data under SIR, but we have no clue what that means. We have not been given any training. So we are awaiting further instructions. In Indapur, villagers protested in large numbers against teachers being sent on BLO duty,” the teacher added.A teacher from Pune rural who recently received the order to assist the BLOs said submitting the details of married women voters and who moved to their marital home is the hardest to fill.“They have no voting related details or documents from their own homes and when we ask for them, they force us to get it for them or expect us to call up their parents and get it. Even the educated refuse to fill up the form saying it may go wrong. We face pressure from our supervisors over daily targets. During heavy rain, a bridge had submerged in our area. Yet the teacher working as a BLO from my school got calls and messages from people asking her to visit and from the supervisor asking her to find a way to complete the daily target,” a ZP teacher from Velhe said.Women Educators swamped with workA woman teacher whose school has 22 students said, “I get up at 5am to cook, finish the housework and get my child ready for school. I teach between 7am and 12.30pm at my school. Then, I have a quick lunch and go around the five villages I have been assigned. These villages are in a hilly region. The fuel tank of my car has leaked multiple times because it hits the rocks on the uneven road. It gets dark early, and there are no good roads. So, I have to return by sundown, and I am always worried about my safety when I am driving back. Once home, I upload the data to the official portal, cook and clean again and help my child with her schoolwork. By the end, I am so exhausted that I have no time to prepare for the next day’s teaching. Before I know, the alarm has rung for the next day.”Safety issues in some visitsA teacher from Haveli said , “I am scared of dogs, and many people keep their dogs unleashed. I am afraid of going to places by myself where the men are creepy. I mostly stand outside and write down the details which takes a toll on my back. My personal number is on all the forms, and I get calls throughout the day. It never stops ringing whether I am teaching or sleeping. If we don’t pick up, they complain to our supervisors. The worst part is that I am unable to do the job I am paid to do. If you don’t teach children well in the formative classes, it becomes hard for them to cope later. I can’t give remedial classes, I can’t spend more time with them correcting their homework or doing any activity because people in the nearby areas start coming to school from 10am with their doubts about the form-filling process.”
