Mumbai schools, especially those which are run or aided by the government, have demanded a holiday on November 21, which is the day after poll day.
This Mumbai School Principals’ Association has demanded considering most of their staff will be too tired to resume school a day after election duty.
While November 20 is already a holiday for schools, they complain that with many of their teaching and non-teaching staff unable to resume work the next day, it will not be possible to run as per regular timetable, with inadequate staff.
If reports are to be believed, the teachers, who are working at a polling station said that they will not be free until midnight on Wednesday. And in order to make the arrangements for polling day, most of them worked on Tuesday too at polling stations. These long hours make it difficult to report early in the morning to schools on Thursday.
The Secretary of the association exclaimed that teachers work under tremendous pressure for long hours on voting day, which is outside of their primary job description. In such situations, it is inappropriate to expect them to report back to teaching in schools the next day. Almost all schools start early in the morning. Additionally, with inadequate staff, schools are not able to function at full capacity.
However, Suraj Mandhare, office of Commissioner of Education, denied that it would be considered and said there is no such precedent since 1952.
Last week, Mandhare had issued directives stating that school principals were allowed to declare holidays on November 18 or 19 if they did not have adequate staff due to the election. However, there was no directive about November 21, which according to teachers is the most required holiday as they are tired.
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