Workplace politics in schools

Ideally, educational institutions are considered saintly spaces invested with the social and national responsibilities of administering learning, growth and ethical nurturing. Teachers, being nation builders, are regarded as the role models, administrators as visionaries and the system itself as the guarantor of social change. But ask any educator with his anonymity guaranteed; the dystopian reality will shock you. You will find every educational institution infested with a complex, toxic and menacing vector often ignored like an elephant in the room: workplace politics.

The idea of workplace politics (WP) acting actively in the workings of educational institutions seems quite out of place. One thing, however, is undeniable: WP breaks into the functionality of an institution when the division of duties is not fair and transparent, when the head of the institution behaves like his highness surrounded by sycophants, or when teachers shirk the diligence required by their duty as teachers.

Let's see how WP works in educational institutions. Grouping among teachers is the first ploy of WP. Every group tries and stoops to the lowest level to curry favour with the head of the institution. Manoeuvres and machinations are employed to delegate difficult subjects or unruly classes to the ones who are not politics savvy and mind their own business. This is more menacing at public schools. The teachers create difficulties for the one who produces good results in his subject or class.

For example, such a teacher requests that in the absence of a teacher, if he is assigned the extra period, it should be adjusted in the class whose in-charge teacher he is. At public schools, a teacher in charge of a class does all the clerical work – the collection of students' monthly funds, enrolment of students, contacting parents, board admissions of students and suchlike. So, the in-charge teacher, to compensate for the loss of students' study time, wants his extra periods to be adjusted in his own class, and there is nothing wrong with it. But he faces resistance from the teacher in charge of the timetable and indifference from the head of the institution.

At public educational institutions, interference of external politics triggers workplace politics. Teachers who rub shoulders with influential social or political personalities behave as bullies. Public institutions abound with such teachers. Their share of work and duty adds unduly to the workload of other teachers – the Boxers of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Ratting on colleagues and belittling their achievements runs in the warp and woof of our educational institutions. Hankering after brownie points, taking undue credit, setting daunting tasks for others while easier for ourselves, schadenfreude, fawning, weaponised incapacitance and the ilk define the work milieu at our educational institutions.

Some heads of public schools decentralise their administration by appointing coordinators or "viceroys" (the Squealers of Animal Farm) to lessen their workload, as they hold the official correspondence, school budget, inspections, deadlines and meetings as their top priority to save their own skin. The pedagogy never remains their concern. The diluted control creates a vacuum for the WP, which feeds on injustice and imbalance in the division of duties and workload among teachers, falsely justified under hierarchical structures. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," writes George Orwell in the same novel. The decentralisation or devolution of power spreads misunderstanding and favouritism among the staff. Information and disinformation become the fodder of propaganda for any tyranny or injustice and their justification.

At public institutions, the teachers who help the head in running the institution administratively smoothly in his presence or absence are his blue-eyed boys, while the teachers who think teaching students and producing results is their sole responsibility remain vulnerable to WP. They are sidelined in policymaking and kept out of the loop in decision-making. Naturally, such policies and decisions are never for the benefit of students but rather to pander to those who are loyal to the king, not to the country.