NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, AUG 23
The Gujarat government on Monday said it will go ahead with a survey on August 24 to check the preparedness of primary teachers, even as an outfit representing them gave a boycott call claiming such surveys were nothing but ‘exams’.
After Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh-Gujarat, a teachers’ union, registered a protest on the matter, the state Education Department had announced recently that it was not compulsory for teachers to appear for the ‘Shikshak Sajjata Sarvekshan’ or teacher preparedness survey to be held on Tuesday. After the Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh-Gujarat hardened is stand and demanded that the survey be scrapped, Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama on Monday said his department will not back down and claimed over one lakh primary teachers had expressed their willingness to be part of the exercise.
“This survey is necessary to improve the quality of education and it’s in the interest of the students too. I want to clarify this is not a test, but a survey designed to help us in preparing effective training modules for teachers. We had accepted the Mahasangh’s demand and made it voluntary and postponed the survey from August 11 to August 24. Now, we are going ahead with our plans,” Chudasama told reporters in Gandhinagar.
“This survey is not compulsory and we are not going to mention it anywhere in their (teachers’) service book. Even the union believes a teacher must remain prepared. I am glad around 1.18 lakh teachers have decided to appear for the survey being held tomorrow,” said Chudasama.
However, Shaikshik Mahasangh functionaries said two lakh of its member teachers would observe a day’s fast on Tuesday as a mark of protest.
“This survey is nothing but an exam. No state in the country conducts such exams for teachers. We are supposed to hold exams for students, not answer exams. This is insulting for teachers and want the government to scrap them. Over two lakh of our teachers will not take part in the survey tomorrow,” said Rakesh Thakar, Secretary of Mahasangh.
