Teachers deployed on poll duty ahead of pre-boards

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 12

With just few months left for the annual exams of Classes X and XII, the preparation of students in government schools is likely to suffer due to deployment of teachers in the upcoming panchayat elections.

The annual board examinations of secondary and higher secondary classes are conducted by the J&K Board of School Education every year in March-April. The panchayat elections in J&K will be held from November 17 to December 11.

Sources said the engagement of teachers on poll duty comes at a time when a majority of schools are planning to take pre-board tests after the completion of syllabus to help prepare students ahead of the board examinations.

They said the Chief Education Officers (CEOs) of all 10 districts of Jammu division had already submitted a list of teachers to be engaged for poll duty to the Deputy Commissioners concerned.

“The engagement of teaching staff of government schools will take a toll on the preparation as well as result of board exams, which was not very good in the past. It can be gauged from the fact that in the Class X examination of the summer zone, the result of which was declared in May this year, 22,390 candidates did not qualify,” an education department official said.

“Of these, more than 50 per cent were from state-run schools. Similarly, in the Class XII board examination, of the total 2,460 candidates that were declared failed, a majority of them were from government schools,” the official added.

Ram Pal Bal, Chief Education Officer, Samba, told The Tribune, “We have submitted a list of teaching staff for the upcoming panchayat elections at the DC office. The exact strength of teachers is difficult to tell but it is more than 500.”

In Poonch district, CEO Mushtaq Ahmad said the list had been prepared. “As compared to urban local body elections, where around 250 teachers were deployed on duty, the strength of teachers is more than 1,000 in these elections,” he said.