Teachers don't Count Cattle no more

Ask a government teacher what hinders the delivery of quality education, and pat comes the answer, “Non-teaching assignments ordered by the local District magistrate”. Having interacted with scores, if not hundreds of government primary school teachers across Bihar over the years, this is their number one excuse for not getting their jobs done: how can we teach when we are ordered out of our classrooms to count animals?

The one fundamental excuse that a teacher in a state- run school has for not teaching is census and poll-related duties, and it has been around for over four decades. They say that instead of teaching kids in the classrooms, they are forced to traverse all over the countryside counting buffaloes, chickens, people below the poverty line... in fact anything that the state government wants counted is on the teachers' slates.

Frank Krishner at a 'Primary School' in Bodh Gaya 2010

The Bihar government has finally applied its mind to the problem and come up with the concept of a creating pool of ‘statistical volunteers’. These ‘volunteers’ will be unemployed educated youth having a ‘mathematics and commerce background’ according to the Bihar minister for planning and development Narendra Narayan Yadav.

One suspects that the person behind this idea is Principal Secretary of the department Vijay Prakash, who is well aware that having teachers go out and count animals, trees, and humans when they should be in school has always been a very stupid idea. Vijay Prakash has a communication style  that is simple and straightforward. This plan is in line with the Supreme Court’s directive that government school teachers should not be sent around on non-teaching assignments.

The teaching fraternity and educationists have pointed out that there was any number of educated and unemployed youth hanging about the place who could be drafted to do statistical work on a part-time basis.

These volunteers will be known as Accredited Statistical Volunteers (ASV), and a panel will be created for every block. Bihar has a total of 534 blocks, 8,071 Panchayats, and about 46,000 villages. This exercise would create about 80,000 part time jobs for educated and unemployed youth who have the requisite skills. Shortlisted and successful candidates are to be given a proper training in data collection and compilation, and receive an identity card. Their work will be remuneration based. In other words, they will be paid whenever there is census and statistical work .

This is a welcome move. The government teachers will have one less excuse for not doing the job of teaching. However, whether this will make a discernible impact on teaching quality is doubtful. Quality teaching needs dedication, intellect, compassion, and the ability to communicate well with kids. That can’t be addressed by statistical volunteers, accredited or otherwise. 

Author: Frank Krishner