The students of the Government schools of the State are bearing the brunt of the board examinations and the general elections as their teachers are busy in discharging the election and examination related duties. The studies in these schools are severely affected although the new academic session has started on April 1.
Many schools of the State were the examination centres of the board examinations of Class X and Class XII conducted by the Uttarakhand Vidhyalayi Shiksha Parishad, Ramnagar. These examinations got delayed by the Panchayat elections and were held from March 27 to May 17. Interestingly the Panchayat elections too were postponed.
The board deploys large number of teachers for invigilation duties and teachers from schools, apart from those where the centres are set up, are also assigned the task. After the examinations the teachers will now be asked to do the evaluation duties by the board. The answer sheets of the students would be evaluated by about 7,000 teachers between April 22 to May 1. The Ramnagar board has set up 28 evaluation centres where these teachers will evaluate the copies and during this process these teachers would stay at these centres.
The teachers also form the biggest chunk of the employees drawn for the election duties. Those enrolled in the election duties would be given training in two phases on April 20-22 and April 29-30 and would leave for their polling destinations on May 4-5. All this leaves very little time for studies in more than 1,800 inter-colleges of the State as summer vacations in the Government schools would start on May 25. The vice-president of Rajkeeya Shikshak Sangh, Mukesh Bahuguna told The Pioneer that most of twenty thousand lecturers and lecturer Teachers (lTs) are deployed in examination and election related duties and the environment of studies in schools is surely being hampered by the duties.