General Transfer of Secondary School Teachers

General transfer rule-

We are all waiting for this G.O.

General transfer rule-

The Govt. is introducing the General Transfer bill with the aim of improving quality of education. In some extreme cases teachers have to travel for 4 hrs (more than 150 km, it is like going from Howrah to Digha!!!!!! daily and coming back) to reach their schools. These teachers will have only one thing in their mind “How to reach school and get back home in one piece”. It is a superhuman effort from them. Teaching responsibilities and student welfare will obviously be farthest from their mind. Thus the students who they teach will suffer the most. The Govt. who is spending crores on education will not get the desired result. In this light the Govt. is introducing the General Transfer Bill to ease out the pain of teachers and thereby improve the quality of education they provide.
However from whatever reports that has come out in the print media about the General Transfer rule one can easily find out a few lacunae which will surely defeat the purpose of the Bill. Let me point out a few…..
1. Though distance is the key factor there are no extra points for distance rather points are there for experience. This seems to be the handiwork of various teacher’s organisations (negotiating with the govt.) which are full of experienced and old aged teachers who have the benefits of their own comfort group in mind rather than all teachers whom they claim to represent.
2. Let us consider the case of 2 teachers
a) A teacher commutes from Uttarpara in Hoogly to Ketugram in Burdwan. A distance of more than 150 km!!. The teacher leaves home at 5.30 am in the morning and reaches home around 9.30 pm. He/She has to take a train and a bus in order to reach school and vice-versa. He/She has been doing this for 5 years. He/She cannot justify the professional duties of a teacher neither family duties as a mother/father.
b) A teacher commutes from Konnagar to Tarakeswar a distance of around 50 km. Teacher leaves home at 8.30 am and reaches home around 6.30 in the evening. He/She has been doing this for 10 years. He/She has perfect work life balance.
whose problem do you think needs to be addressed in priority to benefit the teacher and the students.
Even a 5 yr old can understand that Teacher A should be provided some relief immediately, because the salary being paid to the teacher A is going to waste. It is not humanly possible to teach after travelling for 5.5 hrs. Therefore he/she is just visiting the school reading the textbooks and coming back.
But the Bill in the present format will ensure that Teacher B who is doing fine will be doing finer ( He/She will probably get posting in a school in his/her own para.) while the condition of Teacher A worsens further with time.
Govt. should see to it that the Act they are about to bring should only aim at improving the comfort to teachers who are under distress thus improving the standard of teaching they provide. To bring that effectively DISTANCE should obviously be first on the list of criteria for granting General Trasfer.

Haa , kaushik babu, eta amio shunechi; amar school er akjon teacher bolechen; tabe authentic kono source nei