Parliament Question: Compliance with Section 27 of RTE Act and teacher workload

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY RAJYA SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO - 133 ANSWERED ON – 11/02/2026 Compliance with Section 27 of RTE Act and teacher workload 133 Shri Subhasish Khuntia: Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state: (a) whether Government is aware that school teachers in Odisha are engaged in non-teaching duties, which may be inconsistent with the intent of Section 27 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009; (b) whether the Union Government has issued any guidelines, advisories or monitoring mechanisms to States, including Odisha, to ensure compliance with Section 27 of the RTE Act; (c) whether any assessment has been undertaken to examine the impact of non-teaching duties on classroom teaching and learning outcomes; (d) if so, the details thereof; and (e) if not, the reasons therefor? ANSWER MINISTER OF EDUCATION (SHRI DHARMENDRA PRADHAN) (a) to (e): A statement is laid on the table of the House. *****STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF THE RAJYA SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 133 ANSWERED ON 11.02.2026 ASKED BY SHRI SUBHASISH KHUNTIA, HON’BLE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT REGARDING “COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 27 OF RTE ACT AND TEACHER WORKLOAD.” (a) to (e): Education is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution and majority of the schools come under the purview of the respective State and UT Government. Accordingly, matters relating to recruitment, service conditions and deployment of teachers fall primarily within the administrative domain of the concerned State Governments/UT Administrations. As informed by the State Govt. of Odisha, Elementary School Teachers in Odisha are not engaged in non-teaching works except decennial population census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to election to the local authority or the State Legislatures or Parliament. This is in accordance with the Section 27 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which stipulates that no teacher shall be deployed for any non-educational purposes other than the decennial population census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections to the local authority, State Legislatures or Parliament. In this regard, the Ministry of Education has issued guideline dated 13.09.2010 to all States and UTs emphasizing that teachers should not be engaged in non-educational duties except those permitted under the RTE Act. The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 recognizes the critical importance of teachers’ well-being and aims to create a supportive and nurturing environment for educators. The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, in paragraph 5.12, underscores the need to prevent teachers from spending large amounts of time on non-teaching activities and states that teachers should not be engaged in work that are not directly related to teaching, particularly to strenuous administrative tasks, so as to enable them to focus fully on their teaching-learning responsibilities. The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 (formerly National Achievement Survey) was undertaken by the National Assessment Centre, PARAKH, NCERT to understand the baseline performance with regards to learning competencies acquired by students at the end of the Foundational (Balvatika 1 to Grade 2), Preparatory (Grades 3 to 5) and Middle stages (Grades 6 to 8) of education, by assessing them in Grades 3, 6 and 9, respectively. National and State level reports including Odisha indicating the participation of students and teachers for PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 are available at https://dashboard.parakh.ncert.gov.in/en, a dedicated dashboard designed to disseminate the findings of the assessment. The report for ODISHA reflects that there is improvement in Learning outcomes at Foundational level. *****