‘Morning wake-up call’ order leaves govt teachers sleepless

India — Ludhiana The heads of government schools, teachers and mentors are sleepless over a new task at hand – to give early morning wake-up calls to students, asking them to study. The idea is to motivate the students to study well and score better in the final exams, officials say.

Senior education department officials will ensure that the teachers do the job diligently. For this, the district education department, Ludhiana, has forwarded state department’s nine-point proforma to the officials concerned who have to fill details such as name of the student called, class of the student, contact number of the student, the time of the phone call etc. The same proforma has also been sent to officials in SAS Nagar, SBS Nagar, Jalandhar and Kapurthala districts.

The district education department has also sent an audio message to all the school heads, conveying that all teachers, principals, district and block mentors will make morning calls to students and will send the details through the Google form.

The state education department move has irked the teachers and mentors. A lecturer of a government school, requesting anonymity, said, “I am teaching Class 12 and pre-board exams are going on. Most of time is consumed in conducting the exams and rest I spend evaluating answer-sheets. Once home, I have to interact with students online to clear their doubts.”

A mentor, who wished not to be named, said, “We are visiting schools daily and clearing the concepts for the students. We are in touch with the students and conduct doubt-clearance sessions. It is not feasible to call them in the morning daily. This is an unnecessary task.”

Ludhiana district education officer (secondary) Harjit Singh said, “As per the directions from the state education department, teachers, principals and district mentors will make wake-up calls to the students in the morning. The idea is to interact with the students and achieve Mission Shat Pratishat.”