Spare teachers of midday meal duty: Bihar to Centre
Involving teachers with preparation of meals and vouchers would turn schools into a ‘bhojshala’, not ‘pathshala’ (canteen, not school).
VIJAY KUMAR CHOUDHARY,
PATNA: Amid the row that has erupted after a video clip of a government school teacher in Bihar’s Katihar district selling empty gunny bags used for carrying midday meal (MDM) foodgrains went viral, state’s education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary Thursday said he has again written to the Centre requesting that teachers be relieved of such duties so that they can focus on teaching.
Choudhary said he also raised the issue during his recent meeting with union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan as a teacher’s job would become all the more demanding under the new education policy (NEP), which also proposes nutritional breakfast to children in addition to MDM.
The teacher in the video clip was put under suspension three days ago. Officials in the education department say he broke service rules to make a spectacle out of a simple procedure of depositing unsold bags with the school management.
This is not the first time teachers have resented such duties. A few years ago, a Bihar government order asking teachers to make rounds of urban wards and panchayat committees
Education minister
of Muzaffarpur and Aurangabad to stop people from defecating in the open had created a furore and the order had to be withdrawn.
The issue of saddling teachers with duties of meal preparation was earlier raised at a Niti Ayog meeting by chief minister Nitish Kumar, who favoured an alternative mechanism like direct benefit transfer (DBT) to beneficiaries and involvement of parents.
Choudhary said involving teachers with preparation of meals and vouchers would have an adverse impact on educational atmosphere and quality and schools would end up being a “bhojshala”, not “pathshala” (canteen, not school).
“The additional breakfast scheme under the NEP was to be implemented from April 1, 2021 itself, but could not happen due to Covid disruption. It is a good move, but the ultimate purpose is to draw children to schools and retain them for all the periods. If the teachers are engaged with preparation of breakfasts and meals, the real objective will be lost,” he said.
The minister said the state government has signed an agreement with Akshay Patra Foundation of ISCON for MDM in Patna schools on a trial basis. “If this works out, we will try to extend it in other districts also by developing a working system group and involving Jeevika volunteers and other local agencies. Providing meals to around 74,000 schools is a huge task,” he said.
Earlier, Bihar had also tried to hand over the responsibility of supplying MDM to children in one block each of Muzaffarpur and Jehanabad districts to Jeevika self-help group (SHGs) as a pilot project. Bihar has 10.5 lakh women self-help groups, the highest number in the country.
The Bihar government’s argument has also found favour from other quarters, notably from the Supreme Court, which said in 2016 that engaging teachers in non-academic work was against the Constitution. It even objected to deputation of teachers on non-academic posts.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had also issued a similar order for its schools.
Former union human resource minister Prakash Javadekar, in a speech in the Rajya Sabha, had said teachers were being overburdened with nonteaching duties.
Under the Right to Education Act, 2019, teachers could be deployed only for three duties – census, disaster management and election, that too only on polling and counting days, according to a leader of a teachers’ association who was unwilling to be named.