Ranchi: State-managed school time tables have been changed to provide sufficient teachers in the number of hours to ‘provide quality education to students.
According to the notice issued by the Ministry of Education and School literacy earlier this month, new school hours will be from 9am to 3pm between July 1 and March 31 and from 7am to 13:00 between April 1 and June 30.
Previously, timings came from 8:00 to 14:00 between July 1 and 31 October 9:00 to 3pm between November 1 and March 31 and from 6:30 am to 11:30 between April 1 and June 30.
“Clear-cut instructions have been issued to ensure quality education for students.
Director along with the regional department will be responsible for implementing regularity in the district,” said Secretary of the State Education of Rajesh Sharma.
According to the order, Saturday will work full of the second Saturday, fourth and fifth which is used to teach solely and the second part of the first and third Saturdays used for extracurricular activities, quizzes, and music.
This step aims to reach 200 days and 800 teaching hours for grade 1 to 5 and 220 days and 1,000 hours for grade 6 to 8.
Previously, it came to the department notification that the minimum number of teaching hours did not become used due to various external factors, including Teachers are involved in jobs that are not related to teaching, such as work related to polio vaccination and in the population census, for example.
Also, some schools do not follow the official time table which also results in a lack of utilization of the minimum number of hours.
Now, according to the current order, other departments can involve teachers in jobs that are not related to teaching only after obtaining the permission of the education secretary.
Sharma said that the teacher may only be appointed as the gate level officer during the election only if the number of employees assigned to work related to polling from other government departments is less than the required amount.
The next order states that the teacher needs to stay back for one hour after the class is dismissed due to completing work not related to teaching and to fulfill the responsibilities of the Management Committee.
In addition to teacher involvement in other jobs, what also hinders the quality of education is the fact that the school will often remain closed for around 70-75 days a year for various reasons, such as climate conditions and hard festivals, although the Directorate of Education has approved only 60 holiday days .