No more weekly tests in government-run schools

HYDERABAD: Thanks to regular teacher protests, students in

government schools

can say goodbye to weekly tests.

Even though an official circular on cancellation of tests has not yet been released, teachers of various schools have unanimously decided not to conduct these weekly tests starting from Tuesday, admitting that these tests are doing more harm than good.

“Because of these tests, we are losing precious teaching hours. Children are forced to write these tests without being taught anything. Also, for every exam we have to spend about Rs 300 to Rs 400, as we have not been issued any additional budget to get photocopies of question papers and to provide answer sheets to students,” said

R Srinivas Reddy

,

president

, State Teachers’ Union, adding that they are against conducting these weekly tests.

He further said students were bunking classes on Mondays to skip these tests. “Even if the collector asks us again to conduct these tests, teachers under various unions have unanimously decided that we won’t follow the orders,” Reddy added.

The teacher’s union added that they were waiting for official orders so that they can put these weekly tests behind and concentrate on teaching rather than on exams.

In August 2017, the collector of Hyderabad district asked all government schools in the city to conduct baseline tests in Maths, Science, English and Telugu every Monday. The circular asked headmasters to conduct weekly tests on the next working day if Monday was a holiday and warned that any deviation from the timetable would be viewed seriously.