Govt teachers irked by lack of internet facility at schools in TN

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government teachers are irked by the lack of internet facility at government schools in the State. With a slew of office work from student’s attendance to generating transfer certificates, several teachers in the schools are forced to resort to their smartphones to finish off the day's non-teaching work.

Speaking to DT NEXT, M Manimegalai, president of TN Primary School Teachers Association said, “Educational Management Information System (EMIS) work is really time-consuming, where we feed in data of each student. Teachers are expected to wrap up the EMIS work before moving on to taking classes each day. With a little window to finish EMIS work, teachers are often seen standing at various corners of the school for internet connection.”

“When teachers are told to generate TCs for students and if we are unable to connect to the internet in our mobiles, we rush to nearby internet centres and finish the work by shelling out money from our own pockets, ”added Manimegalai.

While government schools in remote villages of the State are faced with poor internet connection issues, government teachers in Chennai city woe about frequent power cuts.

“Frequent power cuts and internet inaccessibility surely delays our everyday work at school. Though we have made multiple complaints regarding the same in meetings, the issue has not been rectified. If we speak about implementing many schemes online, how are we to work, if the internet becomes inaccessible, ”questions a government middle school teacher in Chennai.