Teachers in the north Indian state of Punjab have gone to court to protest at being forced to cook meals for pupils

Asit Jolly:

The primary teachers say the government should cook the food and leave them to do the teaching.

Cooked food must be provided under a government scheme to improve nutrition and attendance.

But teachers say they are given no facilities so must cook in classrooms and then wash up, taking up to four hours from teaching time.

The teachers say unless the situation changes it will have a terrible effect on the learning of Punjab's schoolchildren.

The state schoolteachers' union has petitioned the High Court in the Punjab capital, Chandigarh, demanding that the government be directed to provide cooked food for distribution under the government's Mid-Day Meal Scheme for schools.

The scheme, introduced last year, is part of the federal ministry of human resource development's effort to improve the nutritional status of children and encourage increased levels of attendance.

But the schoolteachers' lawyer, Atul Lakhanpal, said not one of the state-run schools in Punjab had the facilities to cook the meals.

"The chore of cooking, unfairly delegated to the teachers, easily takes up three to four hours of their time in school," Mr Lakhanpal said.

The High Court issued a notice to the Punjab state government to reply by 16 January.

The Mid-Day Meal Scheme was introduced to counter a high drop out rate among pupils.

Parents in poor families were keeping them at home to do menial jobs to contribute to the family income.

For many years, schools simply distributed uncooked flour and groceries to the children.

But in many instances this encouraged corruption with school heads either selling off the food or enrolling non-existent students to claim larger quantities of uncooked food to sell at a profit.

Now teachers are supplied raw materials and told to cook them. There are periodic checks on quality, with the teachers held responsible.

Teaching unions have made representations to the government over the issue in the past but say no action has been taken.

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