Civic poll duty for teachers likely to affect govt school students 

But the poll is expected to affect the studies of several lakh children in government schools as the State Election Commission will be engaging about one lakh teachers for local body election-related works once the official notification was issued.

In addition, management activities of the state-run schools are also likely to be affected as thousands of headmasters and principals will also be deployed on election duties.

Though during the Parliament elections, government teachers were engaged in poll related works, the studies did not get affected sincethe polling was conducted during summer holidays.

With Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam recently assuring that the local body elections in the state, which could not be held for the last two years, would be completed by the end of this December, a senior official from the State Election Department told DT Next that order has been issued to appoint teachers and headmasters for local poll duties.

“We have already appointed 43 government teachers to work as assistant returning officer in few wards at Tiruvallur district,” he said adding about 3,000 teachers will be engaged in each district for poll related works.

Stating that teachers will also be given training with regard to the poll related works, he said the sessions included videos highlighting duties of the polling personnel and hands-on training on the use of ballot papers and among others. “The election work, which could go up to one month, will be from 10 am to 5 pm on weekdays,” he added. However, the official pointed out that government teachers in Chennai city will be spared since poll duties will be taken care of assistant revenue officers.

The appointment of teachers for local body election duties assumes significant as the ruling AIADMK, in a recent all party meeting with Election Commission, demanded that teachers should not be included for poll work as they were already “overloaded” with several school activities.

Opposing the government’s move, Tamil Nadu Teachers Association president PK Ilamaran said thatpoll duty will surely affect the studies of students.

“With already students struggling to cope up with new syllabus, absence of teachers will further affect them,” he said during previous elections, the poll related works did not affect the students since the activities were there for three days.

“However, since assistant returning officer activities consumes more time and therefore, government should consider at least not to engage us to do this work,” he added.