Salaried for Surveys, Empty in the Classroom: How Administrative Duties are Hijacking Public Education

An opinion by

Aishwarya Siingh

Pexels

The persistent claim that public schools are achieving parity with private institutions is being fundamentally undermined by a systemic redirection of resources that prioritizes administrative data over student learning. Currently, a staggering 90% to 95% of the teaching workforce in Uttar Pradesh has been removed from the classroom to serve as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) survey. This administrative overreach has left schools in a state of functional paralysis; while students continue to attend, they find their classrooms empty of instructors. Only headmasters and supervisors remain on the premises, acting as mere caretakers rather than educators. This results in a miserable waste of the students' most formative years, as the core objective of the institution—the delivery of a curriculum—is completely suspended in favor of government surveys.

This crisis is not an isolated incident but rather a symptom of a perpetual cycle of non-teaching assignments that treat educators as an all-purpose administrative workforce. Beyond the current SIR survey, teachers are already being earmarked for duties involving the upcoming National Census (Janganana), followed by the Panchayati and Vidhan Sabha elections. Even in the rare windows when they are not in the field, they are frequently pulled away for mandatory training sessions, ensuring that their presence in the classroom is a rarity rather than the norm. By the time one government task concludes, the next begins, leaving the public education system in a permanent state of neglect. There is currently no mechanism for accountability or a platform for the public to question why election logistics are consistently placed above the academic future of millions of children.

Ultimately, the government's strategy reveals a troubling prioritization of fiscal utility over educational quality. The primary aim appears to be the total exhaustion of the salaries paid to teachers by utilizing them for every conceivable state function except for actual teaching. This approach renders the government’s promises of "reliable education" hollow, as the "Right to Education" cannot be upheld in an environment where the teacher is perpetually absent. While private school students advance through their studies without interruption, public school students are left behind by the very state that claims to protect their interests. Until the government separates pedagogical duties from administrative labor, the public school system will remain a building without a soul, and its students will remain casualties of bureaucratic convenience.

 (Author's own opinion)