Attendance register, registration deadline and a head teacher's instruction
You are class teacher of Class 9 in an aided high school in Ranchi district, 52 students. Board registration forms are due in six days. The school's written rule, repeated in the examination circular, requires 75% attendance for eligibility. Sunita (name changed) has 61% - she missed 18 of 47 days. Her mother has been ill, she cooks for and looks after two younger siblings, and her father works as a migrant labourer in Kerala. The head teacher tells you, 'Mark her present for the sports week and the two health-check days. It is only on paper, and our results will suffer if she is struck off.' A senior colleague says everyone does it. You hold the attendance register, a copy of the school rule and the examination circular, and Sunita's mother has made an oral request to you. Sunita has not been told that her name may be struck off.
1. Set out the realistic options open to you and the consequence of each, then say which you choose.
Read the worked answer
Option 1, do as instructed: the register is falsified in three places, and if a board inspection or a parent complaint surfaces later, the class teacher - the person whose signature is on the register - carries the liability, not the head teacher. It also teaches Sunita that her problem was solved by a lie, which removes any reason for her to attend.
Option 2, refuse and do nothing else: the register stays clean, but Sunita loses a year for a reason unrelated to her ability, and the school's failure to act becomes the story.
Option 3, which I choose: keep the register truthful, and simultaneously create a formal, documented route. Write a short note recording the dates missed, the stated reason, the mother's contact and the fact that the absence was reported, submit it to the head teacher with a request that the case be placed before the school management committee as a hardship case, and ask in writing whether the examination circular provides any condonation or relaxation. Ask for a reply in writing within two days. This keeps attendance records honest, gives the head teacher a legitimate way to protect the result, and puts the decision where it belongs.
2. Write the substance of what you would say to the head teacher and to Sunita. Keep both honest and non-confrontational.
Read the worked answer
To the head teacher: 'I will not be able to mark her present on days she was absent, because my signature on the register makes me responsible for it and it would not survive scrutiny. What I can do today is submit a hardship note with the dates, the mother's illness, the siblings she cares for and the fact that the family informed us. If the circular allows condonation, let us apply under it; if it does not, let the committee decide with the facts in front of them. I will also take responsibility for a catch-up plan so that if she is allowed to appear, she is not set up to fail.'
To Sunita, with a teacher she trusts present: her attendance is short, the rule says 75%, and her name is at risk - she must hear this from the school, not from a rumour. Then the concrete part: which days she can realistically attend, what work she has missed, a named person to give her notes, and a fixed weekly check-in. Do not promise an outcome you cannot deliver.
3. Beyond this one case, what would you change so that hardship does not depend on a teacher bending a register?
Read the worked answer
Three structural changes, all cheap.
First, an early-warning threshold: any student crossing 80% attendance triggers a phone call and a home note within a week, not a crisis meeting at 61% in the registration month. Most of Sunita's 18 days could have been intercepted.
Second, a written hardship procedure with named steps: class teacher's note, head teacher's review, committee decision, decision communicated to the family in writing. The existence of a legitimate channel is what removes the pressure to falsify.
Third, academic protection alongside attendance: a buddy for notes, a fortnightly catch-up slot, and teachers told which students are carrying domestic load so that homework demands are realistic. None of this rewards absence; it recognises that the cause of absence is often outside the child's control, while the record of attendance stays true.
Finally, raise the practice at a staff meeting without naming anyone, because the senior colleague's 'everyone does it' is the real obstacle - a norm, not an individual.