Temporary teachers should be allowed to assess papers: Tawde

Lack of number of teachers to assess answer papers is the major reason for delay in declaration of results as per the state education ministry. The Mumbai University (MU) is considering the proposal of the ministry to involve temporary teachers in evaluation of answer scripts in order to fasten the process of assessment and reduce workload of permanent teachers.

Assessment process whether online or offline entirely depends on teachers as they have to evaluate each and every paper with utmost care. Vinod Tawde, state minister for school and higher education, suggested temporary teachers who teach on clock hour basis should be allowed to assess papers as the number of permanent teachers is less. Due to limited number of permanent teachers, the load of assessing large number of papers of varied courses has increased which delays the process.

Teachers are generally appointed on clock hour basis for a brief period of nine

months. Tawde said, “If these temporary teachers can teach they can evaluate answer papers too and thus they should be involved in the assessment process. This will help complete the assessment process and we will be able to declare results soon.”

In addition, teachers are burdened with other nonteaching work like filling of various academic forms, scholarship forms, extracurricular activities and cultural programmes. A teacher said, “Most of our time is spent in completing various formalities of nonteaching

work. Throughout the year we are busy with catering to such activities and filling details of students. Teaching and assessment should be our major focus and this task should be given importance.”

The education ministry aims to come up with some measures along with teacher’s organisations in order to reduce the burden of non-teaching work. Tawde said, “We will meet the teacher’s organisations and discuss these issues with them. We aim to reduce this extra workload so that teachers can focus on academics.”