Despite minister writing to Chief Secy, teachers put on election duty; students likely to suffer

Even though Education Minister Harjot Bains had written to Chief Secretary to exclude teachers from poll duties in the interest of students, his words seem to have little effect as in the recent zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections schoolteachers have been deployed for SIR and booth-level duties.

Hundreds of teachers from Amritsar have been assigned as booth-level officer (BLO) duties in the polls and are travelling 80-100 km almost daily to report at their jobs.

Democratic Teachers Front district president Ashwini Awasthi said that the district administration had crossed all limits because this time the election duties of widows, mothers, pregnant and unmarried women employees had also been assigned.

Talking about the duties of BLOs, the teachers said that the work of drawing, counting and revising votes was done by BLOs at their booths throughout the year. “Adding to the pressure, there are strict orders from the Election Commission and the administration for the BLOs to clear the pendency and book a call in the BLO app daily. For the last few months, the work of SIR (Special Intensive Revision) by the EC is also being done with great dedication by the BLOs despite many difficulties. Despite this, it is completely unfair to impose election duty on BLOs this time as well,” said Gurbinder Khairah, a government schoolteacher from Amritsar.

Awasthi said that in 2025, government schools have had several disruptions. “Teachers have remained engaged in poll duties. Almost all senior secondary teachers, even of important subjects like maths, science, social science and English have been assigned poll duties. Students remained at receiving end as classroom teaching suffered. This time, most schools are functioning with marginal teaching capacity as teachers have been engaged in SIR and poll duties. Add to that school closures due to India-Pak escalations in May, followed by floods. It has been a bad year for school education in Punjab,” he said.

He further condemned that women teachers were being harassed due to these duties.

Polling is on December 14. In several districts, women teachers have been posted 70 to 100 km away from their parent school, making it difficult for them to travel. “On the day before polls, they will have to stay overnight despite many safety issues. Rehearsals have been conducted on December 8, and on December 11 and December 13. Many female teachers faced safety issues as they had to travel really late at night, some without any family member to accompany them,” said Awasthi.

The teachers demanded exemption as the BLOs had been busy with their department work as well as election work throughout the year. They demanded that in these elections, relief be given to chronically ill, widows, mothers, pregnant employees.