Barabanki Teachers on Selfie-Attendance: What About Self Respect?

Why are teachers in UP’s Barabanki protesting against the new ‘selfie with attendance’ directive?

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(Photo: The Quint)

Video Editor: Ashutosh Bharadwaj

School teachers in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki are protesting against the new ‘selfie with attendance’ directive that has been implemented in schools whereby teachers must take a selfie and send it along with their attendance. This selfie needs to be sent by 8 am and a penalty will be imposed for late attendance.

Megha Rupam, Chief Development Officer of Barabanki, said that her inspection led her to conclude that over 50 percent of the teachers in the district don’t come on time, hence this initiative was taken.

Basic Shiksha Adhikari VP Singh asserted, “The first day they are late, a (verbal) warning will be given. Second day, a written warning will be served. If they are late on a third day action will be taken as per the directive and a day will be deducted from their CL (casual leave). The intention is not to punish them in a way that puts them under pressure. Rather, it is to bring order and improvement. If they give proper reasons (for being late) their salary is released. Otherwise, their salary for that particular day is deducted.”

However, not all teachers see this as a curse. Assistant teacher Parul Shukla says that everyone's image is being tarnished because of a few teachers who don't come on time, and this new mechanism will spare the disciplined ones.

“Those protesting against this system demand to know why such rules are being applied only on teachers of the basic department. Are they the only ones who don’t come on time? Are all the problems because of them? Are all the other departments ‘perfect’? Is there no one getting late in other departments? Are offices working timely everywhere else? We don’t say that one must follow the wrong examples. We are teachers, we set examples for the society. But even we have self-respect.”

Parul Shukla, Assistant Teacher