Ahead of Maharashtra elections, school students roped in to motivate parents to vote

One of the parents said, “It is okay as long as the message is about the importance of voting. But it is unnecessary to ask for details such as phone number and address.”

While parents are nonplussed about providing their contact numbers and residential addresses; schools are finding it difficult to participate in the campaign running parallel to term-end exams. One of the senior teachers said, “Exams are going on now. We already have a considerable number of teachers aways for election duty-related works such as training, making it difficult to burden remaining teachers with an additional task.”

One of the teachers called for training said, “These training sessions are of 3-4 hours starting from 10 am. Days of training sessions in this week are also clashing with Periodic Assessment Tests (PAT) which are held centrally by the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT).”

Former head of the Maharashtra School Principals Association, Mahendra Ganapule said, “Apart from the fact that it is clashing with the ongoing exam time, it is also important to note that schools are not provided any financial support. The proforma is just sent digitally, expecting schools to take printouts for circulation.”

Teachers are also asked to visit different areas to create awareness on voting by taking pictures of individuals in a frame having a message “I will vote” written in Marathi. “In order to take these photos, we are subject to long conversations with individuals frustrated with politics. They are asking us for a reason to vote when politicians are changing sides. Not only are we not equipped to provide answers to these questions as teachers, it is also taking a great amount of time away from schoolwork,” complained a teacher.