The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Vacations are hectic for teachers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 06, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Vacations are hectic for teachers

Dhanya Parthasarathy

`They should take a break to come back recharged' Teachers are catching up with revised syllabi and coaching students for public examinations

CHENNAI: Maths teacher Manjula Srinivasan hasn't cleaned out one almirah of her home yet. This summer vacation, she still has about four more days of `school duty' and an M.Sc (Maths) examination looming on May 29.

Few teachers in the city have time enough to put up their feet, relax and sip a tall glass of lemon juice and think about a two-week holiday at Goa. Though it is not business as usual this month, they still have an array of school and student-centred tasks to catch up with.

Ms. Srinivasan has to pop into her Modern Senior Secondary School, Nanganallur, to issue calendars, school fee receipts and transfer certificates. "And I still have to study for my Maths examination," says this teacher who enjoyed only one day of "true leave" when she took her children out to watch `Chandramukhi.'

Elsewhere, teachers are catching up with revised syllabi, coaching students for public examinations and working on getting better qualified.

Government schoolteachers have a full plate too. About 450 primary teachers from outside Tamil Nadu are here in the city to get the latest dope on activity-based learning.

M. Kannammal, headmistress of the Corporation Primary School at Sankarapuram, isn't on vacation yet. She attended a H.M.'s meet on Wednesday and says there's a load of administrative work to be done at school. Some of the teachers in her school are busy taking the school age children's census in their area or sitting for admissions.

In summer senior teachers are usually up to their ears in attending training modules, correcting papers, admission work, chalking out timetables, stocking books and uniforms, says a government official.

Bina Mathan, headmistress of the primary section at Sir Venkata Subba Rao School, says she has "never, ever switched off completely during the holidays." "I plan for the next academic year and think about the activities ahead." The president of the Association of Private CBSE Schools, R. Kishore Kumar, says several teachers involve themselves in tuition and coaching in the "real spirit of helping children do well."

Observes a researcher on schools: "Teaching is a difficult job. To shout against the noises in the school.

To maintain one's cool against the flow of energy of so many children locked up in a room. More than any other profession, teachers need time for themselves."

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