Gurugram
Teachers in Gurugram’s state government-run schools on Tuesday wrote to the directorate of education seeking the withdrawal of a directive mandating teachers to update a digital “Teacher’s Diary” before and after every class, and warned of staging a protest on April 17.
Members of the Rashtriya Prathmik Shikshak Sangh (RPSS), a district-level teachers’ association, alleged that the online process takes at least three to four times the manual process and places an additional burden on already overburdened teachers.
“Earlier, we used to fill the diary manually, which took around half an hour a day. Now, the online version takes at least one-and-a-half hours to two hours, in addition to the manual work that we are still doing,” said Vinod Shoken, president of the Gurugram division of RPSS. “A primary teacher often handles four to five classes every day. If they have to fill every lesson detail online before and after class, it takes away teaching time and increases stress. This decision was made without consulting teachers, and it is not practical.”
The uproar comes a week since the education department made it mandatory for teachers across Haryana to update “diaries” on the Management Information System portal. It is a tool to record daily teaching plans, schedules, and lesson outcomes for every subject.
Teachers also alleged a lack of digital infrastructure and lack of training.
“Some schools use smart boards that only have preloaded content because of a lack of internet. So how can we update the diary in real-time? This is not monitoring, it’s micromanagement,” said Dushyant Thakran, former president of RPSS.
Sonal Sharma, a postgraduate, who teaches at the Government Primary School in DLF Phase-3, said: “I teach multiple subjects, and my priority is to make sure students understand the topic. But now, I constantly worry about logging into the portal, updating entries, and staying within timelines. Teaching is turning into a documentation task.”
“Not every teacher is digitally equipped. Many are still getting used to the portal. Some of the teachers lack basic skills, such as typing, uploading the documents and accessing the portal. The department should have conducted training sessions before implementing this,” Shoken said.
Education department officials said the Teacher’s Diary feature was activated on the MIS portal on April 9, to improve transparency and monitor government schools.
District education officer Indu Bokan said failure to update the diary may result in departmental action against erring teachers.
“Teachers were given manual diaries, but many would delay filling them out. The shift to an online system is aimed at improving the monitoring process.With the planner now online, visiting officials (inspectors) will be able to cross-check whether the lesson plans and information entered were actually,” she said.
“If teachers face any challenges, they are welcome to raise them and we will work on finding a solution,” she said.
Leave a Reply