Double whammy for Pune teachers

The double burden of census work and correcting papers of standard X and XII repeaters' examination is driving teachers in city colleges round the bend. This is because they need to manage all this in addition to their regular work.

The Secondary School Certificate and Higher Secondary Certificate repeaters' examinations began on September 29 and six days after the exams commenced, papers of the 50,000-odd students were distributed to about 250 examiners for correction.

However, the teachers complained that at the same time, they were also told that they have to carry out census work. With both the duties to be carried out at same time, teachers are working overtime and colleges are being forced to make adjustments.

"It is true that our teachers are involved in both exercises. We are making adjustments by sharing work and minor changes,'' said Rekha Palshikar, vice-principal of Fergusson College. Some teachers complained that they fear being reprimanded for not submitting corrected papers on time. "Since we have to do our college duties as well as census work, we hope we are able to meet the deadlines. It is unfair that census duties should come to us so unexpectedly,'' said a college teacher.

Another teacher pointed out that during the first round of census work too, a lot of college staff had been enrolled and valuable time was lost. "We have internal college examinations. We have paper checking for college and board examinations, as well as census duty. Who will be responsible if quality is affected for lack of time?'' she asked.

However, officials of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Examination maintained that there is no choice. Division secretary of Pune board, MV Gosavi, said that teachers had opted for paper correction duties months in advance.

"It is unfortunate if other duties have come up at the same time. Each teacher is expected to evaluate 200 answersheets in eight days, which shouldn't be a very tough job,'' he said.