Lack of office assistants force teachers to do menial jobs

MADURAI: In the absence of office assistants in government schools in Madurai district, teachers and headmasters are forced to carryout the menial jobs. They feel that their precious time is wasted on several miscellaneous works like carrying postal, bills and distribution of several students welfare goodies provided by the state government. Moreover, it creates friction between teachers and headmasters when the task is assigned.To prevent such problems, most of the time headmasters themselves carry out the work.
Sources from the school education department in Madurai district said that at least one posting of office assistant should be there in a school. There are 198 government schools in the district of which hardly around 170 do not have the posting filled. The number of vacancies has increased by and large in the last couple of months as several office assistants have got promoted and transferred during the period. Similarly, vacancies of sweepers and watchmen are also lying vacant. In their absence, teachers are forced to maintain the campus spic and span with the help the students.
A higher official from the department said that it is causing them headache as many teachers are complaining about the issue. There are frequent problems between the teachers and headmasters which lead to chaos in the campus and possibly affects the students. "On the other hand some headmasters make use of the situation and keep themselves away from the campus carrying out their personal work. We cannot question them as they would reply they are carrying out the duties of office assistant in their absence," said the officer.
Filling up admission forms, accounts maintenance, salary distribution, sending and receiving postal and bills between various sections of the department, distribution of welfare measures by the government including free text books are the office assistant duties.
"It is obvious that either school teachers or headmasters are forced to carryout menial works. If the headmaster and teacher are not on good terms, the problem erupts. Government must take an initiative to fill up the vacancies," said S Baskaran, district secretary of High and Higher Secondary Schools Head Masters Association.