JOIN US The state government earlier this week has issued a directive to school teachers of government and affiliated schools to follow dress code and also not to carry mobile phones while on duty.
In over two lakh government schools across the state, teachers will be banned from wearing T-shirts, jeans, 8 pocket/4pocket pants, flip-flops etc.
The Directorate of School Education has issued the guidelines. The directive mandates teachers to be dressed in a manner “appropriate to their profession.”
State School Education Minister Sake Sailajanath said headmasters should ensure that teachers do not carry mobile phones into the classroom. “In a 50-minute class, teachers were speaking for about 30 minutes on mobile phones,” he said.
The guidelines and instructions came after a series of parent-teacher meetings and meetings between teachers unions, school education commissionerate.
On an inspection last month, Sailajanath observed that teachers were dressed in jeans and T-shirts which did not look professional and hence the new set of guidelines.
He also said that wearing glamorous dresses by teachers was hampering students concentration. Teachers wearing glittering dresses would definitely influence the minds of adolescent students, he said. He preferred male teachers wearing black trousers and white shirts and women wearing traditional plain cotton saris or churidars.
The minister said that loud ring tones were a major distraction in the classroom and there should be a government order making it mandatory for teachers to deposit their phones in the principal or headmaster’s office during class hours.
“Nearly a third of the new recruits wear casual clothes to school and waste precious hours on the phone,” Syed Shaukat, president of Andhra Pradesh primary teachers’ association said.
When we tell students and parents to come dressed properly and try to discipline them, why not some elementary discipline for teachers, asks Achyuta Rao, who runs an NGO. Parents are advised not to come to schools dressed in nighties or lungis to drop their children. Children of such parents are reprimanded in school Assemblies and are asked to tell their parents to be careful, he said.
However, young teachers say that dressing casually brings in an atmosphere of friendliness in their classes.