Ever since the olden days there have been three types of relationships between a teacher and a pupil. There’s the obvious “teacher’s pet”, who is loved by the teacher and is ready to do anything for some extra marks. Then there are the last-benchers, who’re absolutely abhorred by the teachers even if they don’t do anything. And then are those who don’t exist for the teachers because they’ve a very neutral effect on the class. However, all these sections are going to collide awkwardly in Kumaon, thanks to an order passed by the Uttarakhand police.
According to the Hindustan Times, Kumaon Commissioner Rajeev Rautela has directed the government school teachers to click selfies with students and post them in a Whatsapp group. He said,
“The teachers must follow the order strictly. It will help in improving quality of teaching and go a long way in improving the image of government schools that are often blamed for low attendance and lack of initiatives in new teaching methodologies by teachers.”
This order comes months after education minister Arvind Pandey planned to introduce selfie attendance on the Ujwal Seva application. However, since that idea never came to fruition, Rautela took it upon himself to monitor the attendance of teachers via the education department’s Whatsapp group.
The directive will be applicable on nearly 8000 teachers from six districts. Additionally, this’ll allow Rautela to monitor student attendance in Kumaon’s schools as well.
Rautela’s strict approach towards curbing absenteeism obviously didn’t go down well with teachers of Kumaon. Bikar Singh Padiyar of Prathmik School Shikshak Sangh offered his view on the matter by saying,
“The teachers already have to deal with so many issues. Getting students to pose for a group selfie and forwarding that on a WhatsApp group is sheer wastage of time.”
Padiyar also talked about practical inconveniences like no internet service in certain areas of Uttarakhand. However, he was most irritated with the police for conducting raids to see if they were clicking those selfies.
Considering how three teachers have been suspended after they were found to be absent, it’s difficult to side with the teachers of Uttarakhand in this case. On the flip-side, as this is an effective way of curbing low attendance in schools, maybe we should urge Prakash Javadekar to apply this idea throughout the nation.