Sisodia, Baijal in war of words over bill to regularise guest teachers

NEW DELHI : In another round of exchange of words, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal denied education minister Manish Sisodia’s claims that the file related to the bill to regularise guest teachers was pending at his office.

Baijal said a solution can only be found within relevant laws, rules and procedures rather than “public posturing”.

Sisodia in a letter to Baijal on Wednesday said “the constant interference,” “orders to hide files” from him and his government, and officers backed by the L-G office disobeying orders, had deteriorated the quality of education in the last six months.

“The very schools that did better than private schools last year have the following result (in pass percentages) in the first term exams this year: 9th std: 12%, 10th std: 21%, 11th std: 44%, 12th std: 43%,” reads Sisodia’s letter.

Some schools, however, said the results were bad this year owing to strict checking and a crackdown on cheating.

“The system has been stricter this time and there were almost zero cases of cheating. Also, unlike earlier when teachers were liberal with giving marks, we ensured papers were checked properly,” said principal of a government school on anonymity.

Sisodia said the L-G had directed the directorate of education to advertise teachers’ vacan- cies without any clarity on how to regularise existing guest teachers, a claim the L-G office refused to comment. With “no path to regularization,” according to the education minister, the guest teachers would be demoralised.

Atishi Marlena, advisor to Sisodia on education, said the decision to only give age relaxation, and no weightage, can affect the quality of work of the 15,000 ad hoc educators working in different government schools. “If these ads are published, one of two things will happen. Either the teacher will start preparing for the exams, even during class hours, or they will completely stop teaching because they don’t think they will be able to make it next year. Either way, students will suffer,” said Marlena.

The L-G said the bill passed by the Delhi Legislative Assembly, despite his recommendations to reconsider it, had not been presented to him with “the requisite reports,” and hence it would be incorrect to say that the bill was pending for his consideration.

“In fact, in a separate file, the education department stated they were not informed about the Bill before it was passed by the Assembly and the department came to know about it only during the court proceedings,” the L-G said. On weightage to guest teachers at the time of recruitment, Baijal blamed the Delhi admin department for failing to re-submit the proposal after consulting the law department.