In compliance with the Right to Education Act, the State had issued a Government order increasing the working hours of school teachers in June, but the education department has failed to implement this order in its schools.
Some school principals in Dehradun said that they have not received the order from the department, while Dehradun chief education officer Shiv Prasad Khali said that schools have already been informed about this GO and they have strictly directed to implement this order.
During inspection, the school principals and teachers found not implementing this order will be considered negligent on duty and departmental action will be taken against them, he added.
Critics said that the education minster Mantri Prasad Naithani has taken several decisions to facilitate quality education in the schools, but the implementation of the several schemes which are operational in the schools is far from satisfactory.
The RTE Act lays down an increase in the working hours of government school teachers to a minimum of 45 hours a week from the current session. In the GO, the working hours of teachers have been increased but the duration of students' stay in the school remains the same.
Government Inter College, Nalapani principal PK Sahi said, "Though I have read about this GO in the newspaper, the education department has not released it to the school." According to him, this GO cannot be implemented in the schools because office bearers of various teachers unions are protesting against this order in Uttarakhand. Education in the schools has been adversely affected due to deployment of teachers for works like census, making new ration card, election and others.
One of the education officers said that the objective of this order was to provide quality education in the schools. In this GO, during the additional working hours, the teachers are expected to finish the paper work, check notebooks, prepare for the next day's classes, prepare teaching material, identify students' weakness, formation of school development plan, practical research, address students' grievances like reason for their absence, abnormal behaviour in consultation with their parents or by involving local communities and others.
The new timings will be implemented in all primary (classes I to V) and upper primary (classes VI to VIII) schools across the State.
The working hours have been increased by two hours a day for teachers of primary schools and upper primary schools. "Students of classes I to V will attend school for 220 days a year while those in classes VI to VIII will have 230 school days annually," he added.