Following dismal results of board exams in the government schools and complaints of favouritism in preparation of annual performance appraisal reports (APARs) of teachers, Haryana Government has issued fresh guidelines for assessment of performance of teachers in the state.
The state Education Department has decided to put in practice “duration principle” and give credit for “non core teaching work” to determine teachers’ performance.
In a communiqué sent to all district education officers and district elementary education officers, the State Education Department has directed that a teacher’s accountability for results should be determined by the duration for which he/she worked on the students concerned. The teacher who worked for longer duration shall be responsible for the results of the class.
Amid confusion over the existing guidelines, the letter further clarified that if X teacher teaches a class for two months and Y teacher for five months, then the responsibility for results of such class would be credited to the Y teacher in the APAR.
The fresh instructions for preparing the APARs of teachers came at a time when the BJP led State Government is under fire for poor performance of class X and XII students in the recently announced results by Haryana Board of School Education.
While class X results saw an overall pass percentage of 50.49 including pass percentage of girls at 55.30 and boys at 46.52 percent, the senior secondary exams (class XII) results was 64.50 percent including girls with pass percentage of 73.44 and boys stood at 64.50 pass percentage.
The teachers’ performance evaluation is aimed at improving teaching skills and providing quality education to children.
The communiqué sent by the Education Department further said that it has been observed that many heads of schools are facing difficulties in deciding as to how to apportion the responsibility for the results of a class for a particular academic year to the teachers. As a consequence, many heads have been seen to be arbitrary in this matter. Some have indulged in favouritism too. Such approaches to a serious and sacrosanct matter are deplorable, it stated.
Particularly when a teacher gets promoted/transferred/adjusted/deputed from one school to other during an academic year, confusion surfaces over as to how results are to be credited into accounts of APARs.
The Department has also clarified that a teacher needs to be given his core responsibility of teaching in his/her core subject. But sometimes, the exigencies of a school may demand innovative and emergent work allocation by a school head. Whenever, an institution gives an additional work beyond the core responsibility to a teacher, then credit of that must also be given within the broad framework of longer duration.
This means, if a PGT (Physics) is given non core work of teaching Mathematics or other subject, in the best wisdom of the school head and with the confident consent of the teacher concerned, then result responsibility for the non core teaching would be credited to this PGT in his/her APAR, the letter stated.
Haryana has sanctioned posts for around 1.21 lakh teachers for its government schools while more than 20000 posts of teachers are lying vacant in She state.