In Tamil Nadu, the School Education Department has instructed Chief Educational Officers (CEOs) to not appoint private school headmasters and teachers as chief superintendents of examination centres.
According to a report by The New Indian Express, a petition submitted by Tamil Nadu Post Graduate Teachers Association had alleged that districts such as Dindigul, Thanjavur, Ranipet and Madurai are not following the strict instructions from the department against appointing private school headmasters and teachers as chief superintendents of exam centres. Following the petition, the director of examinations sent another circular to the CEOs across the state directing that only headmasters and senior teachers working in government and government-aided schools should be appointed as chief superintendents.
Also, according to the circular from the department, headmasters of the schools functioning as exam centres can't be the superintendents of the same school. They should be deputed to another centre within a radius of eight km. The centre in which they are posted should also be different from the centre where they were posted last year, reported TNIE.
Meanwhile, the association has also urged the department not to provide additional work to the PG teachers as practical examinations for the higher secondary classes are underway. "The Teachers' Recruitment Board has asked the officials in districts like Chennai, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu to depute PG teachers for confidential work. This will have an impact on the students as the practical examinations are going on. So, PG teachers should be exempted from the work," the petition from S Prabakaran, state general secretary of the association, stated.