Posted on 12/10/2003 5:57:54 AM PST by JesseHousman
LUCKNOW, India (AP) -- Teachers in India's most populous state have been told to stop knitting in classrooms and pay more attention to their students.
"They are often more interested in knitting than in teaching," Neera Yadav, the principal secretary of education for Uttar Pradesh, told The Associated Press in the state capital Lucknow on Wednesday. "All the officials - including teachers and clerks - in the primary and secondary sections have been banned from knitting on school premises during teaching hours."
Complaints from parent groups prompted the ban, which went into effect Nov. 26.
Teachers, however, are fighting back.
"People concentrate better when they knit," argued Panchanan Rai, a teachers' representative in the state legislature.
"What's wrong if they sit in the staff room and knit during free periods?" asked R.P. Mishra, a spokesman for the Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Teachers' Association, calling the ban "dictatorial."
Mishra said the teachers have threatened to strike for the right to knit, but the government has not responded.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Hyderabad bunch of puns.
This is a Bangalore!
But it would be sarong to utter such a pearl of an apology.
That one was a real delhi.
You'd think they'd have more to do than just
Sita round all day.
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