The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `A reflection of teachers' feelings'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 15, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`A reflection of teachers' feelings'

By Our Special Correspondent

CUDDALORE, MAY 14. The poll verdict in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu is the reflection of the people's feeling, particularly that of the teachers, against the government in not taking proper care of primary education, S. Abdul Majid, State general secretary, Tamilaga Arambapalli Asiriyar Koottani, has said.

In a statement here, Mr. Majid alleged that the government seemed to be bent upon closing primary schools in rural areas on the pretext of ``having less number of students than the stipulated strength.''

During 2002-03 and 2003-04 not less than 500 primary schools in villages were closed down. This action encouraged the private sector, which had predominant presence in high school and higher secondary levels, to make inroads into the primary education too by fixing hefty fee structure, thus rendering it unaffordable to students belonging to the economically weaker sections. Even though 1,000 schools were upgraded from the primary to middle level by adding three more classes — VI, VII and VIII — it failed to increase the number of teachers. This severely altered the teacher-student ratio from 1:20 to 1:40, and later to 2:99.

Through this move, the government had reduced the number of secondary level teachers from 1,93,000 to 83,000, and this arrangement had put enormous workload on the teachers. The government had identified as many as 14,000 teachers as ``excess'' and therefore, resorted to indiscriminate transfers.

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