Winter vacation duty should not be a new burden for teachers

Mondo Education Updated on 2024-02-06

The arrangement of teachers on duty during holidays is more reflected in the form of "attention" to campus safety, and it is difficult to say that it has a substantive effect.

The full text is 1386 words, and it takes about 4 minutes to read

Written by Beijing News Commentator Chi Daohua Edited by Xu Qiuying Proofread by Zhao Lin.

Data map. Figure ic photo

With the advent of the Spring Festival, primary and secondary schools have entered the winter vacation time, and the issue of teachers on duty during the holidays has received the most attention.

According to top news reports, recently, many teachers posted that they were arranged to be on duty at school during the Chinese New Year, which was cold and meaningless, questioning the existence of formalism. According to the report, most teachers are resistant to the arrangement of holiday duty. Some high school teachers reported that in addition to the winter vacation, shifts will be arranged during the usual summer vacation, Labor Day, National Day and other holidays; Some primary school teachers also said, "Teachers are on duty every winter and summer vacation......Teachers at school need to take pictures of the school's ** to punch in the work group".

Obviously, arranging teachers to be on duty at school during holidays has become a common practice in some places. At the school level, this move is of course a decision made from the perspective of maintaining campus safety, and the original intention is not to "toss" teachers. However, from the teacher's point of view, the school already has full-time security guards, and some schools have water and electricity cuts off during the holidays.

Teachers are dissatisfied with this, and even post**, which reflects not only the questioning of the value of the holiday duty itself, but also the resistance to their own non-teaching tasks being arbitrarily increased.

In 2019, the national level emphasized in the "Several Opinions on Reducing the Burden of Primary and Secondary School Teachers and Further Creating a Good Environment for Education and Teaching" that it is necessary to firmly establish the concept that teachers' vocation is to teach and educate people, effectively reduce unnecessary interference to primary and secondary schools and teachers, and return tranquility to schools and time to teachers. Since then, departments at all levels have listed reducing the non-educational and teaching burden of primary and secondary school teachers as the focus of their work, and have successively introduced specific measures.

However, judging from the actual situation, there are still many primary and secondary school teachers who spend a lot of energy on social affairs, filling in reports, various questionnaires, etc., and arranging teachers to be on duty during holidays is another burden on teachers outside of normal working hours. And, unlike other tasks, this is the result of the school's initiative.

In this report, a staff member of the local education bureau said in an interview that it is not mandatory for each school to arrange teachers on duty, but only stipulates that the school has personnel on duty during the winter and summer vacations to ensure the safety of the school, and the specific matters are arranged by the school itself. In other words, arranging teachers to be on duty during holidays is not a mandatory requirement of the higher authorities, at least this is not a mandatory provision at the level of rules and regulations.

Since schools can make their own arrangements, they should start from the perspective of minimizing the burden on teachers, give full play to the role of school security and other responsible personnel, and do a good job of campus security during holidays.

It should be made clear that teachers are on duty during holidays, and in case of emergency, the role of teachers themselves is probably limited to the timely notification of information. And this "function" is the business of school security and other logistics personnel, and should not be imposed on teachers. The school abandons the special personnel and arranges teachers on duty during the holidays, which is more reflected in the form of "attention" to campus safety, and it is difficult to say that it has a substantial effect.

Of course, the size of the school is different, and the specific problems faced are different, and the holiday teacher duty system cannot be completely denied. Some schools have a large number of teaching staff, and some teachers are willing to participate in holiday duty in order to obtain subsidies. However, it is obviously inappropriate for schools with already overstretched teaching staff and heavy teaching tasks to occupy teachers' holidays.

In the final analysis, the arrangement of teachers on duty during holidays must be subject to the wishes of teachers, and schools should not make it a mandatory requirement.

Reducing the non-teaching burden on teachers is not an easy task, and many of them are beyond the control of a single school or educational function. However, within the scope of "self-arrangement", schools should coordinate resources and optimize management, so as to create more conditions and space for teachers to improve teaching and self-development, rather than giving extra weight and making holiday duty a new burden for teachers.

Related Pages