Teachers to undergo poll work training

CHENNAI: Around one lakh teachers who are expected to be deployed for Assembly election-related work would undergo training that is likely to begin this week.

A senior official from the School Education Department said the teachers who are to be appointed for election work were identified district-wise. “The Election Commission had communicated to all district education officers recently that training programme for teachers with regard to poll-related works could be conducted during the first week of March,” he added.

The teachers would be trained to work as zonal officers, presiding officers, assistant returning officers, expenditure and booth level officials during the election time. From March first week, training for zonal, presiding, and assistant returning officers would be held, he said.

“We were also asked to complete the training for teachers who are to be appointed as expenditure officials by March second week. The details of the training, which is expected to start in couple of days, will be submitted to the Election Commission,” the official added.

Usually between 50,000 to 60,000 teachers are appointed on election duty. However, it was decided to deploy nearly one lakh teachers this time after Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora’s recent order to set up 25,000 additional polling booths to ensure that COVID-19 safety norms are followed.

The official said as per the State government’s announcement, officials involved in election work would be included in the priority list along with frontline workers for COVID-19 vaccination.

“We are in the process of identifying teachers above 40 years with comorbidities so that they could be vaccinated before elections. A separate vaccination drive will be conducted for officials on poll duty officials,” he said.