New Delhi: One Delhi govt teacher was appointed as a trained graduate teacher (TGT) over two decades ago but never entered a classroom. He has spent his entire career in administrative offices, eventually rising through the ranks without ever teaching a single class, according to a school official. This, he said, is not an isolated case but reflects a larger problem within the Delhi govt school system.Officials and education experts say several TGTs and postgraduate teachers (PGTs), though officially counted as school teachers, remain posted in administrative offices handling court cases, files and other clerical work instead of teaching students. As a result, the actual number of teachers available in classrooms is significantly lower than what official records suggest. In the register, these people are marked present with ‘on duty’ written against their names. Officials estimate that around 200 teaching posts are compromised across the city.Principals and teacher representatives said this practice extended across different categories of teachers and even school heads. Teachers are deputed to district and zonal offices, education department headquarters, stadiums and other administrative establishments, often for years, while their names continue to remain on the rolls of their parent schools.A principal said many of these teachers were full-time office staff in all but name. “They are deputed to district offices, zonal offices and the headquarters for administrative work instead of teaching. They are not handling additional responsibilities alongside classroom teaching, they have effectively been shifted out of schools altogether.”The principal cited the example of sports teachers permanently stationed at stadiums and computer science teachers shifted to the headquarters despite schools having only one or two of them. “If a school has only one computer science teacher and that teacher is taken away, who will teach students computer science?”According to the principal, the issue is not confined to teachers. Several principals and vice-principals are also working in district offices or headquarters while continuing to be shown against their schools. “Their posts are not shown as vacant though they are physically absent from the schools. As a result, schools are left without leadership,” the principal said, adding that Delhi currently has hundreds of vacant vice-principal and principal posts.Another principal argued that if govt required personnel for headquarters, libraries or stadiums, it should recruit separate administrative staff. “A teacher’s post should remain in the school where students need that teacher.”Ajay Veer Yadav, general secretary of Govt School Teachers’ Association, said he had repeatedly raised the issue with the department over the past 15 years. According to him, “There isn’t really any proper system or official process behind it. They are often attached to district, zonal and headquarters offices at the discretion of officers and are given the designation of OSD.”Yadav said every teacher shifted out of a school directly affected students. “If a school has 20 sanctioned teachers and even one of them is not available, someone has to fill that gap,” he said. The problem stems from the absence of a dedicated administrative cadre in the education department, he argued.There was no immediate response from the education department. However, an official said, “It would not be correct to suggest that a significant number of teachers are permanently diverted from schools. In some cases, teachers are assigned administrative duties to meet statutory and departmental requirements.”Education activist and lawyer Ashok Agarwal said the issue had been repeatedly flagged before the high court. He said he had submitted lists of such cases to the education department and the then director had ordered officials working outside schools to return to their original postings. “But after some time, people gradually found their way back to the same offices,” he alleged.According to Agarwal, more than 200 teachers continue to remain on “other duty”. Govt schools’ non-teaching staff should handle duties like RTI and RTE works, he emphasised.
