Many teachers had complained on Tuesday that their selfies with students were not getting uploaded on the website specified by the government, and that they had wasted their whole day on Monday grappling with the problem.
Bringing relief to school teachers, the state school education and sports departments have temporarily stayed the implementation of a Government Resolution (GR) mandating teachers to take selfies with groups of 10 students on two Mondays of each month to track attendance and reduce dropouts.
Many teachers had complained on Tuesday that their selfies with students were not getting uploaded on the website specified by the government, and that they had wasted their whole day on Monday grappling with the problem.
Education Minister Vinod Tawde on Wednesday issued a statement to the press that the implementation of the GR was being carried out erroneously by education officials at the zilla and taluka levels, and that a meeting with education officials would soon be called to discuss the right manner of implementation.
From the start of the year, teachers were instructed to click selfies with groups of ten students and upload them on the SARAL website through a specified link. The government wants teachers to click pictures of school students in order to keep a track of student attendance and to prevent schools from showing fake students to the government.
SARAL (Systematic Administrative Reforms for Achievement of Learning by Students) has been developed by the Centre’s National Informatics Centre (NIC). It can track students’ academics. The software also has information on teachers and schools.
When the teachers began implementing the selfie GR, they faced lot of glitches while uploading it on the government link. Some teachers organisations approached Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis a few days back, requesting him to cancel the practice in schools.
Nand Kumar, Principal Secretary, School Education and sports department said, “After receiving several complaints from teachers that they are not being able to upload their selfies with students through the given link, the department has decided to put a stay on this practice till further instructions. The practice is just postponed and not cancelled completely.”
While teachers have welcome the move of putting a stay on the practice, some want it to be completely scrapped.
Anil Bornare, spokesperson of Shikshak Parishad, said, “We met Education Minister Tawde today and explained the whole problem to him. Representatives of our teachers organisation also met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis a few days back and conveyed the same problem. After that, our request was accepted by Tawde and he immediately put a stay on this practice.”
Kapil Patil, MLC, President Lok Bharati said, “We want this practice to be scrapped completely, instead of just a stay. Clicking selfies is a mental health problem, so how can the Education Minister want this practice to be followed by teachers in schools. This practice is also one way of not showing faith in teachers.”
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