Multi-tasking at one-teacher schools

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Ambala, April 22

In Government Primary School (GPS), Sambalkha, a Class IV student’s everyday job is to run across to the watchman’s house, bring back the keys and open the classrooms while the only teacher at the school is busy bringing some order to the morning assembly. He has to handle 187 students of five classes all by himself.

In adjoining Dinarpur, again a one-teacher school with a student strength of 100 plus, little Aaina, a Class III student, is busy teaching mathematics to her fellow students and juniors while the teacher has his hands full, accepting admission forms to various classes and dealing with parents.

These two are not stray instances of one-teacher schools in Ambala or elsewhere in the state. Adjoining these two schools are GPS, Panjhel, where a guest teacher holds fort while teachers single-handedly juggle teaching and office work in GPS, Kesri, Assandpur and Badola, though some help is available to them by way of panchayat-appointed teachers.

However, by their own admission, the teachers maintain that they are unable to justice to studies and office work which invariably gets delayed while getting a substitute from the senior school for that period for any leave they may want also becomes their responsibility.

The non-availability of books and the School Education Department’s focus on the “class readiness programme” has added to the woes of these one-teacher schools where the teachers have to choose between attending to the students or completing office work.

“We can’t be expected to be doing two important things at the same time. Consequently, the emphasis, presently, is on office work since new admissions have to made, the Aadhaar card linking had to happen and accounts and passbooks have to be scrutinised, besides many other day-to-day work. This leaves little time for study,” explains the head teacher in one of these schools. The girls appointed by the panchayat are busy with their own exams and haven’t been coming to school.

Another teacher has been managing the school affairs alone for over a year. All pleas for an additional hand have fallen on deaf ears. “Teachers are in short supply. We all know that there are many vacancies and still keep bringing it to the notice of our seniors since managing everything is humanly impossible. Taking leave is also a big deal since we have to approach the senior school to provide a substitute,” he says.

In most of these schools visited by The Tribune, the teachers maintained that sometimes they are forced to take the help of students to hold classes since there is no other alternative. “We ask them to repeat tables of mathematics or assign written work to tide over the day while we complete the many formalities of office work,” one head teacher claims.

Not much teaching is possible at the beginning of the new session since attendance is very poor essentially because most parents are busy with harvesting at this time of the year. “They come to us for new admissions or send their children to school after the first month. So, we use this time to deal with routine school affairs and go slow on the studies,” they explain.

However, sore about being all by themselves for months on end, they maintain that they are forced to carry work home after a whole day at school. “It becomes difficult to give our best to the students when we are so weighed down by work. Studies are a casualty and qualitative improvement in learning levels cannot happen like this,” a teacher states, mincing no words, as school gets over. The students are off for the day, only to be back the next day for a similar routine — that of repeating tables or dictations.