Teachers, schools resent census duty

LUDHIANA: Once again the issue ofcensus duty is giving sleepless nights to teachers and school managements. Thistime, the private school teachers are determined not take up this additional jobas it would adversely affect the performance of students. But the governmentschools are left with no other option but to let the teachers go for the censusduty. The things were blown out of proportion when some teachers of the schoolresigned owing to this.Talking about it, BCM Senior Secondary School principal DP Guleria said, “From our school, 68 teachers were sent for the duty when we had the staff of hundred teachers. But after this, 50 teachers have resigned since they had made it clear while joining that they would not been able to work after school hours.” “It is getting verydifficult for us to run the show with just handful of staff. So we met theofficials concerned and after understanding our problem, they assured us thatnow only 25 teachers would be taken from my school for the census duty,”he added.BCM Arya Model Senior Secondary School principal Paramjit Kaursaid, “Yes, there were some problems as we were asked to give hundredteachers for the duty. But now it has been decided that only as many teacherswould be provided by the school that won’t hamper the studies ofstudents.”Guru Nanak Public School principal RS Gill said,“Presently, our teachers are busy in marking papers so if teachers wouldbe census duty, too, it would actually turn into a big problem and I think thatschool teachers should be exempted from this duty.” It’snot that the teachers of private schools have problems, even those working ingovernment schools are bearing the brunt. District Education Officer (Primary)Harbhajan Ram said, “I am receiving endless complaints regarding this. Insome schools all teachers have been given duty, so to sort out students’problem, I have called all block education officers to discuss the problem onMonday and we have submitted a written complaint about it to the deputycommissioner if something else could be worked out, but I don’t know howwould we manage.” Not ready to bow down, deputy commissionerRahul Tiwari said, “Actually it is not that big a problem. We have to dothe census and if teachers say no to the duty and other employees, too, wouldcome up with one or the other excuse. But if there is some genuine problem,teachers are free to approach me and we would definitely consider theircases.”What does it meanA census is the procedureof systematically acquiring and recording information about population. It is aregularly occurring and official count of a particular place. The term is usedmostly in connection with national population and door-to-door censuses and areundertaken after every ten years.