BANGALORE: Ashraff Unnissa of Alahalli vanished two years ago. So did Shanthamma, who was last seen in and around rural Yedyur. Then there's Geetha HR, who has clean vanished from her place of employment in Kodihalli.
All three are members of an elite yet dubious Karnataka club: Bangalore government school teachers with some of the worst absenteeism records in the state. They are gone, forcing their colleagues to pick up their long-forgotten class-load.
Never gone
But in the twisted logic of the educational bureaucracy, they are not forgotten. Since their bosses in the district offices haven't purged their names from the employment rolls, they can’t be replaced. Their schools just have to manage by having their colleagues rotate into the empty classroom or by borrowing teachers from other schools.
The cases of Unnissa, Shanthamma and Geetha are the most extreme in a government school system that, like tens of thousands throughout India, is burdened with chronic teacher absenteeism. Every day in Karnataka, one out of five teachers is not in class.
Leave
Although teachers work a 235-day year, they fall under the same Karnataka Civil Service Code as government officials who work the full year. Teachers are entitled to 49 days, or 20 per cent of their year, in "authorized leave" to attend workshops, take personal days, enjoy local holidays and work in elections. If a teacher is pregnant, she can take an additional 135 days, wiping out 80 per cent of her classroom time at full salary.
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Compare this to leading city-based private schools, where teachers get 12 days of authorized leave and 60 days of maternity leave.
“It should not be assumed that since you are working in a government school you can take as much leave as you want,” said Rita Dhruve, a senior instructor at the Cathedral Composite Pre-University School.
“I think the system stinks if a teacher takes 49 days of authorized leave and then tries to cram the entire syllabus in the remaining working days. Can you imagine the plight of the children? The whole system rots.”
Faulty system
Experts agree that the government educational system cheats students by the rulebook.
“Teachers are accountable for the performance of children,” said Ujjwal Banerjee, an independent educational consultant. “The children will not learn anything if teachers are absent constantly…. the overall performance of a class is affected when teachers are absent regularly.”
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