Teachers oppose board evaluation work in red zone

LUCKNOW:: Ahead of evaluation of UP Board answer sheets in red zone areas gets started from May 19, teachers association in the state has decided to boycott it, apprehending that it would risk lives of its members in view of the alarming number of Covid-19 cases.

Senior office bearer of Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh, RP Mishra said, “With more than 800 people testing positive for Covid-19 in Agra, how state government could force teachers to go to evaluation centre for duty. It is so inhuman. We cannot risk lives of so many teachers.”

Instead, teachers association has proposed secondary education department to let teachers carry answer sheets to their home where after evaluating them, they would deposit the checked answer sheets back to the centre. “We understand these are difficult times but teachers’ health should also be considered,” Mishra said.

The secondary education department, however, was not willing to buy the theory put forth by teachers association as it feared that the quality of evaluation work would be compromised as it could not be ascertained whether answer sheets were evaluated by teachers.

An official said, “The evaluation work will remain suspended in centre that falls under containment zone and likewise if an examiner lives in a containment zone, he or she will not be asked to resume evaluation work.”

After resuming evaluation of high school and intermediate answer-sheets in 56 districts in the green and orange zones, the UP Board has announced to extend the exercise in remaining red zone districts from May 19.

The cities in red zone where evaluation will begin are Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur city, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Firozabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Bulandshahr, Meerut, Rae Bareli, Varanasi, Bijnor, Amroha, Sant Kabirnagar, Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur and Mathura.

The evaluation of UP Board answer sheets is being done from May 5 to 25.

It started with green zone followed by orange zone. Mishra said teachers were happily evaluating copies in the green zone. Teachers association alleged that the department was putting undue pressure on its colleagues, threatening them with salary cut and other disciplinary action against teachers for saying no to evaluation duty.

THE UP BOARD HAS ANNOUNCED TO EXTEND THE EXERCISE IN REMAINING RED ZONE DISTRICTS