Mumbai: The performance of class 10 civic students was deteriorating due to teachers’ lack of focus, claimed sources in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) civic committee. They said that the teachers were burdened with clerical work including making reports, filing online forms and completing formalities prescribed by the Maharashtra State Board. The sources claimed that out of the seven hours clocked by teachers every day, three to four hours were spent in completing these activities and hence, their focus on teaching and academic activities was dwindling.
However, a senior officer of the civic education department, education officer Mahesh Palkar, sidestepped all such claims saying, “Clerical activities are a part of the teachers’ job and they have to manage it with their teaching work”.
A BMC school teacher said, “Now, board examinations of class 10 students will start and this is the time when helping students fill their examination forms and sending details online to the board office begins. We have to manage both academic and non-academic work as there is nobody else to do it.”
Aarti Pugaonkar, member of the education committee, said that though there was no provision for the BMC to appoint non-teaching staff, times have changed. “Initially, BMC only had classes from 1 to 7 which have the least teaching work. Now however, there are the 8, 9 and 10 classes as well, which means more work. Most of it has been made online these days, which the teachers find difficult to handle,” she said.
