Municipal school teachers are gearing up for a State-wide agitation on Monday in protest against increasing workload on the fraternity.
Headmaster’s suicide
A 57-year-old primary school headmaster, M.S. Subramanyam, in Parigi mandal of Anantapur district committed suicide on Saturday reportedly due to enormous pressure, coupled with health condition.
He was reportedly asked to upload the details of the works taken up in his school. He did not have much knowledge about computers, and under the pressure, he had resorted to the extreme step, the local police said.
Stating that teachers, especially headmasters, were under constant and enormous pressure as many were unable to adapt to the new technologies and meet deadlines, Municipal Teachers’ Federation State president S. Ramakrishna said there was an urgent need for the government to pay attention to the issue.
Calling for the need to remain mentally strong to withstand the winds of change sweeping the education sector, he appealed to the teachers not to lose hope and try and upgrade their skills.
Mr. Ramakrishna also urged the Chief Minister to order a probe into the circumstances that drove Subramanyam to end his life.
Issues to be addressed
He said there were several issues needed to be addressed before expecting teachers to do a prompt job. There were teachers who lacked computer knowledge, there were schools with no computers, printers or Internet facility. Teachers were forced to visit Net centres and get their works done by paying money. There was a continuous flow of new apps that the teachers were expected to use in daily work.
Besides, there were daily inspections adding to the mental agony of the teachers, he said.
The MTF leader said mere improvement of infrastructure in schools would not serve the purpose and the government should also focus on appointment of adequate staff, hand over the responsibility of mid-day-meal scheme to ward secretaries and spare the teachers of the non-teaching duties.
