Primary and high school teachers who are being deployed as enumerators for the Houselisting and Housing Census phase from July 1 to 30 will likely be given compensatory off for carrying out house visits on holidays.

Order regarding this are likely to be issued soon.

However, school teachers’ organisations are demanding duty leave for making house visits on working days. To avoid any academic disruption, teachers on daily wages can be posted to take classes for schoolchildren for the duration of Census duty, they say.

The organisations say it is not very practical for teachers, a majority of whom are women, to undertake house visits before and after school hours owing to risks and other demands on their time. “The Census questionnaire has 34 questions. The enumerators will take at least half an hour at each house. In such a situation, how many houses will they be able to cover after teaching children?” they ask.

In such a situation, teachers will end up taking leave to finish the house visits on working days. If they are not replaced by daily wage teachers in schools, academics will suffer. The daily wage teachers need to be posted only for those days when regular teachers are unable to come to school.

The organisations also highlight that in some schools a large number of teachers have been deployed as enumerators. This will lead to a total paralysis in those institutions. For instance in Thiruvananthapuram district, 15 of the 16 teachers at GLPS Anad and 12 of the 15 lower primary and 12 of the 15 upper primary teachers at GUPS, Vithura, have Census duty. At GHSS, Manacaud, 51 of the 64 high school teachers have been deployed as enumerators, they point out.

Teachers who have been deployed as enumerators earlier say there is a limit to how many hours the teachers can spend making house visits on holidays. “It is not practical to expect them to visit houses the entire day.”

However, department officials say teachers can make house visits till 11 a.m. and after 3 p.m. Also, non-teaching staff and employees from other government departments too have Census duty similar to what will have to be done by teachers.

A decision on intra-district transfer of primary and high school teachers is also expected on Monday, they say.