“I spend half of the day collecting money and managing people, whereas I should be focused on teaching” said Jasveen Dhawan, my elder cousin and an 11th and 12th grade English teacher at Hindi Senior Secondary Government school in Sector 31 Chandigarh, India. Jasveen and I recently reunited after 7 years and I got a chance to get her personal view as a teacher in a Punjab Hindi medium government school.
In fact, Jasveen teaches 240 students each day, 4 sections of 60 students. Because there is only 1 clerk and 1 accountant at each government school, her workday consists of 50% teaching and 50% clerical work and management of funds. Each month, Jasveen must collect school fees from 60 of her students (which is 150 Rs per month per student). Sometimes the students don’t pay and she has to pay out of pocket and follow up persistently with these students to get paid back. Jasveen also manages all the school funds for her classes, including buying exam books and stationary from the market and collecting cycle, library, and deposit funds.
“Teachers become much less motivated if we are not focused on our job,” Jasveen said as she outlined her list of daily duties (not including teaching). She then emphasized that school teacher training which mostly consists of lesson plan guidance and new teaching aids was not applicable to the main issues in her classrooms: overcrowded classes and administrative burden.
Although we cannot immediately change the government system, Education Access for All, wants to help teachers like Jasveen manage her time and her classroom. Through Newton Management, our school management service, we want to build a network of schools where teachers can concentrate on their prime responsibility to teach in the classroom and have access to the innovative tools necessary to succeed.
by Erica Dhawan
Tags: Chandigarh, Newton Management
