BHOPAL: Sixteen govt school teachers have been assigned duty at Khatlapura Ghat for four days to manage arrangements during Durga idol immersion, drawing strong objections from teachers' unions.




The District Education Officer 's (DEO) office issued the order on Oct 19, directing four teachers each day from Oct 20 to 23 to remain at the riverbank from 4 pm to midnight.




Those assigned include principals, vice-principals and secondary and higher-secondary teachers. According to the order, they must report to the official in charge of the ghat and assist with arrangements in anticipation of a large number of devotees arriving for the immersion.




Teachers' unions have described the directive as another example of the administration treating educators as an easily available workforce for non-academic responsibilities.






They argue that assigning teachers to crowd-management duties during public holidays disrupts teaching, reduces instructional time and sends a poor message about the value placed on education.




The unions say the administration had assured them that teachers would be deployed only for essential tasks, such as census operations or revision of electoral rolls. Using them for immersion arrangements, they maintain, breaks that assurance and reflects poor administrative planning.




"The administration had previously assured us that teachers would only be assigned to essential tasks, such as the census or the revision of electoral rolls. Deploying teachers for the Durga immersion-especially on public holidays-is inappropriate. It disrupts the education of students," said Rakesh Patel, state president of Guruji Shikshak Sangh, Madhya Pradesh.




Defending the order, District Education Officer (Bhopal) Abhinav Arya said, "There was nothing unusual in it. Teachers had been assigned different duties earlier as well."




The issue exposes a familiar weakness in the system: whenever a public event requires extra hands, teachers are among the first to be pulled from schools. Safety and crowd management are legitimate administrative concerns, but they require planned deployment of police, municipal staff, health workers, volunteers and event-specific personnel-not repeated reliance on schoolteachers.




The unions have urged officials to honour earlier commitments and restrict teachers' duties to essential, education-related work.




Until that happens, 16 teachers in Bhopal will spend their evenings at the riverbank assisting the administration with crowd management.