‘Flawed, erroneous order’: Edu officer attached to HQ over directive to teachers to collect straw for stray cattle

Bareilly: The block education officer (BEO) of Bareilly’s Nawabganj, Satyadev, whose letter purportedly asking govt teachers to “collect straw” was circulated online on Thursday, has been issued a show-cause notice and attached to district headquarters, officials said Friday. The straw was meant to be collected for stray cattle housed in local cow shelters.Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) Vineeta Singh said the BEO misread departmental instructions and passed a “flawed, erroneous order creating a chaotic situation”. “The BEO has been served a notice,” she said, adding that straw collection for cattle was entirely voluntary. “It’s a public service initiative. No one can be compelled to participate.”The letter, which “threatened teachers with action and gave them exactly seven days to collect the straw”, sparked widespread criticism after it was “leaked” online. It explicitly warned teachers of an interdepartmental probe.According to the bizarre administrative direction, BEOs in Bareilly were ordered to collect 1,500 quintals of straw. The mandate required each of the district’s 15 BEOs to collect at least 100 quintals of the fodder from their respective blocks. The directive further stated that schools under Nawabganj BEO’s jurisdiction were expected to deliver 46 kg of straw to the block development officer or the veterinary office within a week.The order met with fierce resistance from educators. “What exactly are we here for — to educate children or collect straw? It is inappropriate to force teachers into this. Today they want us to carry bags of straw, tomorrow they will tell us to collect cow dung or sweep floors. It is unacceptable, and if forced, we will take to the streets,” said Bhanu Pratap Singh, a govt school teacher.He pointed out that teachers are already stretched thin balancing classroom duties with the ongoing national census. “Forcing these kinds of tasks on us destroys our morale,” he said.“If a teacher is busy with such jobs, when will they teach?,” another teacher, Rita Batra, said.Following the public uproar, BEO Satyadev was forced to issue a second letter clarifying that the “straw collection was entirely voluntary”.BSA Singh, meanwhile, scrambled to reframe the order as “a harmless charitable drive” rather than a mandate. “It was never compulsory. The concept was merely that if a villager or city resident wanted to donate straw for stray cattle, the local teacher could act as a contact point to help collect it,” she told TOI.