The Nair Service Society (NSS) colleges central committee, which runs several educational institutions, recently issued a circular which said teachers working in the colleges under it should submit a separate sheet showing the dates on which they have taken extra classes to compensate for the teaching hours lost during their leaves. This is applicable for those who have even taken maternity leave.
The NSS is an organisation which represents the privileged Nair community. The order, issued by the secretary of the NSS college central committee on March 14, has put women faculty who have availed maternity leave in a spot. "On verification of the documents/ proposals received from the colleges for issuing the placement order/for permission to constitute the selection committee, it is seen that most of the teachers entered 100% as their score in Table-1 'Teaching and Learning Related Activities'. For teachers who have availed Casual Leave/ Duty Leave/CML/Earned Leave/Maternity Leave/Paternity Leave/Loss of pay Leave etc during the academic year, the Principal has to submit a separate sheet showing the dates on which they have taken extra classes to compensate the teaching hours lost during their leave,” the circular read. A copy of it has been seen by TNM.
The circular requires women teachers to compensate even for the maternity leave availed by them. MR Unni, who issued the order, told TNM that the purpose was to ensure that the students do not suffer because of the loss of class hours. "The intention of the order is not to make teachers take extra classes to compensate for the loss. It is for the college to make extra arrangements for lost hours. This has nothing to do with maternity leave; it is the right and privilege of female teachers. We wanted to ensure that the principals had made alternative arrangements so that the students won't suffer,” he said.
However a teacher refuted this claim. “In this circular, why should a principal give an explanation on the maternity leave taken by a teacher? And it is obvious that principals won’t oppose orders by the management. Principals can prepare the response only after checking individual records of teachers and in this case the teachers will have to provide the explanation for the class hours lost which is absurd in the case of maternity leave,” a teacher told TNM.
The teacher added, “All teachers have to fill up forms with the points they got for the lectures given and other academic performances like attending refresher courses to get promoted. It is true that the orders are sent to principals. Orders will not come individually to teachers and there will never be a direct communication with the management and teachers in orders like this. Hence the claim that it was sent to principals and not teachers is absurd as the onus is on the teachers to come with explanation or record for the classes lost,” the teacher added.