Staff shortage forces schools to shut for 3 days

NEW DELHI: Many city schools will remain closed from Tuesday to Thursday owing to the Assembly elections.

Several schools have declared a holiday on Tuesday as they do not have sufficient teachers – who are on election duty – to conduct classes.

While all schools are closed on Wednesday for polling day, some institutions have decided to remain shut on Thursday too.

Teachers and non-teaching staff at these schools have been assigned election-related work starting Tuesday.

Also, many schools have been designated as voting centres on October 15.

Therefore, even though the government has not declared any official holiday, many schools have postponed scheduled exams and have announced a three-day holiday.

Several schools faced a staff crunch on Monday itself, with Hansraj Morarji Public School, Andheri, being forced to rope in trainees from a teacher training institute to conduct exams.

“We had to take this step because a majority of our teachers had to report for an additional day of election duty training on Monday,” said Anjana Prakash, principal of the school.

Swami Muktanand High School, Chembur, held exams on Monday morning so that the staff could attend the training scheduled in the afternoon.

Fatima Devi English High uled the exam that was to be held on Monday as there were not enough teachers to conduct it. “The Monday exam has now been moved to Saturday,” said Rajesh Pandya, a senior teacher from the school. The school will be closed from October 14 to 16.

Similarly, Shardashram High School, Dadar, has not kept any exams from October 14 to 16. “Teachers will be exhausted after election duties so we have not scheduled any paper on October 16,” said K Shirsat, school principal.

SIES School, Sion, has given a study leave to students on Tuesday as the school is a polling centre. “Our staff will vacate the school by 11 am on Tuesday as per election commission’s orders,” said Kalyani Arumugam, principal.

“We had no choice but to assign election duties to teachers in large numbers,” said Anil Valvi, deputy chief electoral officer. “This is because in Mumbai we do not have sufficient staff from government offices. We need 60,000 staff in Mumbai suburban region to