Education Dept starts child mapping; teachers miffed

Naina Mishra
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 3

The UT Education Department has started a child-mapping survey-to identify children who are yet to be enrolled in schools.

More than 3,000 teachers working in Chandigarh government schools have been engaged in doing door-to-door survey. They have been asked to survey their respective areas of identifying children up to 18 years.

The exercise is scheduled to conclude on December 14, after which the department will file a report. The door-to-door survey will wind up on December 8.

Every year, a child-mapping survey is conducted under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, to maintain the records of children within the jurisdiction. Children belonging to economically weaker sections (EWS), those who have dropped out, those who have never enrolled in school and children with special needs are identified in the survey.

Through the survey, the mother tongue of the child will also be recorded. The three languages mentioned in the survey are -- Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. It will also track migration and sparse population and children enrolled in unrecognised schools. To be eligible for EWS, a total annual income of a child’s parent should be less than Rs 1,50,000.

Teachers show reluctance

Government school teachers are reluctant to conduct a survey as quarterly examinations are going on in government schools.

While the performa for consolidation of UT comprehensive educational survey says that the survey is under RTE Section 9 Clause ‘D’, teachers contend that Section 27 of the Act prohibit them from doing such work.

As per the RTE Section 9, the local authority shall maintain records of children up to the age of 14 years residing within its jurisdiction, in such manner as may be prescribed.

However, Section 27 of RTE prohibits the deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes, other than decennial population census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections to a local authority, state legislatures and parliament.

Swaran Singh Kamboj, president, UT Cadre Educational Employees’ Union, said, “The Education Department allotted the duties of child mapping to government school teachers. Apart from these additional duties, teachers have to face humiliation at the hands of a resident who treat them as any other sales person. The government should give child-mapping work to a private agency.”