Patna, June 17: It’s that time of the year which students rue the most. No more waking up late as the vacations have ended and it’s back to the early morning madness to rush to school. Life of schoolteachers, however, hasn’t change much as they spent most part of their vacations on the school campus only.

A good number of teachers were made to work during the vacations. They were engaged in correction of answer sheets and organising cultural events.

The delay in CBSE results this year added to their pain since they had to work on it throughout. This shattered their dreams of spending quality time away from the pressure of professional life.

“The CBSE Class X results spoilt my vacations and I could not go to meet my relatives. I was asked to finish everything by the result date. Even when the results were announced, I had to sit throughout the day just to find out the details like number of students scoring 10 CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average). Not only this, everything had to be done in writing and one has to be very specific and clear while carrying out these formalities,” teacher of a city school, on condition of anonymity, told The Telegraph.

Some teachers even donned the role of call centre executives, answering hundreds of phone calls daily. The phone calls were regarding CBSE Class X result date. A few schools had asked teachers to correct the answer sheets of the internal assessment. This included internal assessment comprising unit tests, projects and others conducted in classes IX and X in CBSE-affiliated schools. A schoolteacher said: “I could not enjoy vacations because I had to check answer sheets. Also some project works which were submitted by the students had to be evaluated by me.”

Moreover, most of the schools are associated with some foundation or cultural society. The schools earn fame by organising events but teachers, who are the people behind the show, suffer. Even if a teacher falls sick or has to go anywhere he or she cannot be excused for the reason if the teacher is co-ordinating a team for a cultural event.

Events like felicitating students or some musical programmes kept teachers of many schools engaged during the summer vacations. Some schools also organised tournaments such as swimming, cricket and others during the summer vacations. The sufferers yet again were the teachers. Even some principals have to face the same problem. Worse are those teachers who have to go to school and sit idle. They were called for some teaching training but often ended up spending around six hours in the school. According to most of the teachers, the school management never wants them to go on vacations.

A teacher said: “Why are we called to the school during vacations? We have a personal life as well.” These schools permit 15-20 days’ vacations for the teachers but that is also on a first-cum-first served basis. If the teacher applies for the vacations beforehand, then it’s okay, otherwise the teacher has to suffer.

According to sources, schools like Delhi Public School (DPS) Patna, BD Public School and others were seen calling teachers to school for some days during the summer vacations.

The director of BD Public School, S.B. Rai, said: “The presence of teachers is required during the time of results or any cultural. If that is not so, it’s like a farmer sowing seeds and not being present during harvesting. The teachers have to be there to maintain discipline. It’s not possible to control children without them.”

The principal of DPS Patna was not available for comment.