Akhilesh backs govt teachers opposing online attendance

Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav has come out in support of statewide protest by government school teachers over digital attendance that became mandatory from July 8, 2024. Yadav wrote in Hindi on X that only by trusting teachers a good generation is born.

“No teacher wants to reach school late but sometimes the reason for this is public transport running late, sometimes closed railway gates and sometimes the distance of 50 km between home and school because teachers neither have government accommodation to live near school nor houses are available on rent in remote areas,” the SP leader’s post read.

“This gives rise to unnecessary stress and a mentally confused teacher can sometimes get into an accident due to hurry, of which there are many examples. If due to some unforeseen reasons, teachers have to leave the school in the middle of the day due to personal health or home, family or social reasons, then a report of absence for the whole day will be sent,” he wrote.

“There can be many reasons for reaching school late or returning from school early. Even due to interruption in power supply or technical problems, there are issues in smooth functioning of services like internet. That is why the option of ‘digital attendance’ is not possible without a solid solution to practical problems.”

He suggested that first of all, it should be implemented in the administrative headquarters of all other departments so that senior officials can experience its practical aspects and problems, then only after the problem-solving, its implementation should be thought about later.

“The biggest thing is that this hurts teachers emotionally, which has an adverse effect on their teaching. For understanding teaching, it is necessary for teachers to connect emotionally. Teaching cannot be done only by spending a certain number of hours in school. We are with the teachers on this issue,” read Yadav’s post.