Bengaluru: In a major reform aimed at protecting classroom instructions and interest of students, the state govt has drafted a new legislation to regulate deployment of teachers from govt and aided schools for non-academic duties such as SIR of electoral rolls, census and election-related work.
The draft has been sent to other govt departments for concurrence.
One of the highlights of the draft Act is the creation of a non-teacher public duty roll. For this, the govt will maintain district-wise rolls of non-teaching personnel from all state govt departments, statutory boards, corporations, public sector undertakings (PSUs), retired public servants, and trained volunteers. These resources must be utilised in full before any teacher can be considered for deployment.
TOI had reported in late July that several teachers were away from schools since June 20, leading to fears of learning loss at govt schools. In view of that, the department of school education was mulling legislative measures to protect teachers from duties not related to academics.
The draft legislation says no govt schoolteacher can be deployed for non-educational work unless the jurisdictional deputy commissioner (DC) issues a certificate, explicitly stating that no non-teaching personnel on public duty roll are available for duty.
Once this certificate is issued, the competent authority can submit it, along with a requisition, to the jurisdictional district education office, who will then need to forward it to the block education officer (BEO) or deputy director.
This new arrangement mandates that no school or classroom should be left closed or without instruction and that at least one permanent teacher must be physically present at the institution during all school hours. Any lost teaching hours must be fully restored within 30 days.
The draft Act explicitly protects teachers and heads of institutions from disciplinary action, adverse service record entries, salary deductions, or civil consequences if they refuse to comply with deployment orders that violate the provisions of the Act.
