Teaching and non-teaching staff of schools and colleges have been sent on training for census duty, disrupting the academic process in educational institutions.
The training census duty started on Thursday and teachers and staff members will serve as enumerators in the actual census.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) will conduct the seventh national census, which is currently scheduled to take place from February 1st to March 4th, 2023.
Teachers were ambivalent about their census duties. A teacher, seeking anonymity, said that it was an abrupt and unplanned move by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), which is hampering the normal functioning of schools and colleges.
The administration is roping in teachers on census duty and students are suffering. Our teachers have hardly finished half of the syllabus yet, the teacher added.
Another teacher said that the academic schedule in government schools had been derailed. The administration did not even bother to ask the principals about the availability of teachers.
The FDE should not have shown an indifferent attitude in this sensitive matter. After all, it is a matter of our future generation. A plan should be devised to tackle the issue, the teacher stated.
The teacher added that only non-teaching staff should be deployed on census duty because when teachers leave schools and colleges to attend training, students suffer the most.
Another teacher said that for the first time, college professors are deployed for this job. It is ridiculous to send them on door-to-door activity in order to collect census data. None of the professors were expecting to be deployed on census duty being in the officer cadre. Professors should not be forced to do census duties because it would leave a negative impact on educational activities,” the teacher claimed.
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