The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is facing allegations of coercing faculty members of institutes run by it to attend government events during duty hours to drive up the number of participants to please
dignitaries.

On July 18, the members of faculty and staff of a Regional Institute of Education (RIE) under the NCERT had received an email asking them to “positively” attend an interactive videoconference session with the minister of state for education Jayant Chaudhary the next day.

On July 19, the professors gathered in specified rooms at the RIEs around 10am. Chaudhary, who was supposed to be at the NCERT headquarters in Delhi for the online interaction at 11am, reached there around noon.

Several faculty members at the NCERT and five RIEs across the country said the authorities wanted to mobilise an online crowd to please the minister.

“For the minister’s event, the faculty members were asked to make up the crowd so that he would be pleased. Everybody complied, leaving their important engagements, including classes at RIEs. The NCERT is a reputed academic institution. Is this the way the faculty members should be treated?” asked a teacher who did not wish to be identified.

He said such actions do not behove the independent institution tasked with preparing school syllabi and textbooks.

“We were asked to attend the programme positively. We spent three hours, including two hours waiting. The interaction was more of a routine one,” said the professor.

Another faculty member said professors had become habituated to the trend of making up a crowd for dignitaries.

“The faculty members can neither stay away from such events nor leave them midway as they can be identified from the pictures and videos taken from the venue for sharing on social media and with the government,” said the faculty member.

Students are not spared either. In July, the education ministry decided to observe “Siksha Saptah” from 22 to 28 to mark the fourth anniversary of the formulation of the National Education Policy (NEP). During this period, functions were organised in schools every day.

Whenever the education ministry organises Pariksha Pe Charcha events addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, students from the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti and the Ekalvya Model Residential Schools are called to the venues. The schools also organise the screening of such events on the premises.

“Actual teaching and learning in schools are no longer the priority of the government. Students and teachers are expected to be the cheerleaders. Some schoolteachers are happy about it as they focus neither on study nor results,” a teacher of a KVS school said.

Higher educational institutions are asked to observe events such as Yoga Day, Run for Viksit Bharat, Clean India Mission, National Integration Day, Good Governance Day and Surgical Strike Day, among others.

The institutions are also encouraged to organise talks by local RSS leaders who speak mostly on the education policy. The speakers are felicitated and the faculty members are supposed to attend the event.

The Telegraph reached out to NCERT director Prof Dinesh Prasad Saklani over email for his comment on the criticism that the council is facing for asking faculty members to attend such routine government events. His response is awaited.