Don't depute teachers for census work: Delhi Govt to schools

New Delhi: The Delhi government has directed the principals of its schools to not depute teachers for census duty with the National Population Register (NPR) as it would adversely affect the functioning of schools.

"A circular in this regard has been sent by the Directorate of Education (DoE) to the schools asking them to put off the deployment of teachers for census work till further orders," a senior DoE official said.

According to the circular, "Many teachers have already joined the respective NPR offices without seeking necessary approvals of the concerned Deputy Directors of Education (DDEs) for this duty".

"The department is already facing acute shortage of teaching staff and consequent upon their deployment functioning of the schools has jeopardized badly," it said. "It is therefore ordered that no official or teaching staff should be deployed for NPR duty till further orders," it added.

The deployment of teachers for a range of activities that aren't teaching-related has been severely criticized before. The Lok Sabha and Delhi assembly elections, for which they were deployed as Booth-Level Officers, kept teachers out of classrooms for days at a time.

Some educationists even linked this to the mass-failure of ninth and eleventh graders in April 2015. There are 946 schools in the national capital run by the Delhi Government.

The National Population Register (NPR) is a register of residents of the country. It is being prepared at the local (village/sub-town), sub-district, district, state and national level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.