‘Works on portals, apps reducing time to teach’: Govt teachers complain

The letter states that this additional workload, much of which involves unnecessary repetition, is reducing the time teachers can devote to the teaching–learning process. (File photo)

Teachers of government-run and aided schools across Maharashtra have complained that the online works to update student information on apps and portals are reducing the time they can devote to teaching. There are as many as 43 apps, portals and links combined on which teachers have to keep updating student information. The teachers have demanded that the state government take policy decisions to reduce this additional workload and threatened to boycott such works if no action is taken.

The teachers have highlighted that there is no non-teaching staff in government-run schools making it difficult for teachers, who are already inadequate in numbers, to focus on teaching while remaining busy in repetitive online tasks.

Days after Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse said that he has written to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to exempt teachers from Block Level Officer (BLO) duties and other election related works, so that they can focus on academic duties, the Maharashtra State Primary Teachers Association has written a letter to Bhuse, complaining of significant time spent on the long list of online information filling work, which is mandatory imposition by the school education department.

Vijay Kombe, state president of the association, said that teachers initially began using online educational apps voluntarily for effective classroom teaching.

“Gradually, the administration made several school tasks compulsory online, including U-DISE and Shalarth work, etc. Since online systems saved time and paperwork, teachers cooperated with these changes. However, there is now excessive demand for information through teachers’ personal mobile phones, with no clear limits,” he said.

Further highlighting the unnecessary burden of online tasks, in a letter addressed to minister Bhuse, teachers’ representatives said, “Mobile use for classroom teaching has stopped, while pressure has increased to use multiple portals, apps, and links merely to collect data. Teachers are being forced to provide information for various schemes, future planning, and even NGOs. Despite years of practice of daily SMS reporting of mid-day meal beneficiaries, teachers are now additionally required to enter the same data daily through the Vidya Samiksha Kendra (VSK) app’s “Smart Attendance Maharashtra” chatbot, which is unnecessary.”

“Student assessment is already conducted through National Achievement Survey (NAS) and Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) as mandated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Therefore, enforcing online assessment under the Nipun Maharashtra program through the flawed Nipun Maharashtra app developed by a private company for foundational literacy and numeracy verification is unjustified,” the teachers’ representatives said.