Census call: Babush to take up matter with CM

PANJIM, MARCH 24
The census training camps for government primary teachers who will be part of the State population census that’s carried out every 10 years has begun. Today, many of the teachers attended the training more out of fear as they have been threatened of three months’ imprisonment if they failed to do so.   
The State administration didn’t appear perturbed with the officers maintaining this was normal and as recommended by Central Government.
“Every State census these teachers are called to be part of the activity. It’s not a big deal as a single teacher has to complete 200 houses in a period of 45 days,” officials said. 
Director of Education Dr Celsa Pinto didn’t appear much happy about the decision.
“The Education Department was by-passed in this matter. I wrote to the mamlatdars and deputy collectors that they didn’t route the circulars informing teachers about the census through the Education Department,” she informed.  
When contacted what he had to say in the matter, Education Minister Babush Monserrate said, “I am seized of the matter and the hardships caused to these teachers. I am taking up the matter with the Chief Minister on Thursday morning.”   
Dr Celsa said she wrote to the Government on Friday for cancellation of the order, but so far haven’t got any response.
“The Education Minister and secretary are aware of the fact. I find this unfair as many of these teachers are also assigned tasks such as booth-level officers, coastal survey and education survey,” she maintained.
This is definitely not the right time to conduct this training for census, she said and added, “Exams are round the corner. There are about 370 single-teacher schools. If these are called then these schools will have to be closed. As a temporary measure I have already posted cluster resource persons and para teachers from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in these schools,” she informed.
Dr Celsa contended under the Right to Education Act every teacher has to complete 220 instructional days. If they are called for tasks other than teaching how will they achieve this, she questioned.