Bihar relieves teachers from toilet duty

Reversal comes after plan drew strong protests from teachers and the opposition

The state government in Bihar has withdrawn its earlier order asking thousands of schoolteachers to make rounds of rural areas and click pictures of those found defecating in the open. The withdrawal comes after it drew strong protests from the teachers as well as the opposition.

“No such order was issued by the state government. The teachers had been only told to keep a tab on the open defecation in the areas without disturbing their teaching work,” Bihar education minister Krishna Nandan Verma told the media yesterday, bringing an end to the controversy. The teachers have welcomed the state government move.

Strong opposition

The development comes barely two days after various teachers’ unions strongly objected to this move by the state government and charged it with “insulting” the teaching community.

“We support the cleanliness drive of the state government but engaging the teachers is really shameful. It’s like destroying the education system,” was how a teacher’s union leader, Shatrughan Prasad Singh, put it.

The union leaders also said the teachers were already burdened with various non-teaching jobs and by engaging them in another such job, the state government appeared hellbent on destroying the academic system in the state.

The opposition too derided the government order and said it was aimed at putting the teaching community at loggerheads with the villagers. It questioned this move of the government without providing for toilets in the houses of poor villagers. Many had no homes of their own, let alone constructing toilets on their own.

“By asking the teachers to monitor the open defecation campaign, the state government has ensured they will be beaten up by the villagers,” RJD chief Lalu Prasad had said.

The controversy erupted after an order was issued by the education department reportedly asking schoolteachers to make rounds of the rural areas both in the morning and evening, keep eyes on open defecation and click pictures of those who do to shame them.

Curiously, the education department initially justified the order and said there was nothing objectionable in it. “Teachers are intellectuals and can perform the task of convincing people not to defecate in the open in a much better way than others,” was how education minister Verma claimed in the beginning.