Teachers hesitant to work for midday meal

Mahbubnagar: The district administration’s plans to extend the mid-day meal scheme for government schools in the summer vacations received a little response from the government school teachers who are hesitant to extend their services at the cost of their holidays.

They advise government to involve other agencies to supply food to students with the supervision of Anganwadis and Village Revenue Officers

It may be noted that the government has already declared 40 days vacation for all schools in State, starting from Saturday. To provide food to lakhs of children in the drought-hit district, the administration planned to continue the mid-day meal scheme across the district and sought support from teachers to implement it.

Though the teachers have appreciated the government’s move, they expressed reluctance in extending their services to implement the scheme during vacations.

“It is a welcome move by the government, but most of the teachers might not be available in vacations as they would go to their native places.

It can also be implemented with the coordination of principals, midday meal in charge and senior teachers, if the government facilitates them to serve students of their native place instead of insisting them to come to their working place,” opined teachers’ association leaders.

The teachers have even advised the government to involve other agencies to supply food to students with the supervision of Anganwadis and Village Revenue Officers (VROs), who, according to them will be more effective than teachers in implementing the scheme.

To assess the possibilities of implementing the initiative, Joint Collector Ram Krishna on Saturday, held a review meeting with teachers’ association and authorities of Rajiv Vidya Mission (RVM) and sought their cooperation. Speaking at the meeting, the Joint Collector said, “This year, the district is facing severe drought and there are lakhs of children who don’t have proper food at home.

Keeping this in mind, the government is planning to extend the mid day meal in vacations and it needs support of teachers.” This year, most of the mandals in district have been declared drought hit. People are migrating to cities for work. The extension of the mid day meal could benefit lakhs of children studying in over 3,800 government schools.

Govinda Rajulu, Rajive Vidhya Mission Project Officer (VRM PO), Vijaya Laxmi, District Education Officer and leaders from teachers’ associations Murali, Raghuram Reddy, Vaman Kumar, Hanmanthu, Farookh hussain, Narayanamma and others took part in the meeting.