The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Teacher vacancies aggravate primary school dropout'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Teacher vacancies aggravate primary school dropout'

By Our Special Correspondent

CUDDALORE, NOV. 16. The dropout rate in primary schools — from Standards I to V — in Tamil Nadu has gone up from 8 to 20 per cent, thanks to tough syllabus and lack of teachers, S. Abdul Majid, State general secretary of the Tamilaga Arambapalli Asiriyar Koottani, said today.

Mr. Majid told The Hindu here that the Government had changed the syllabus on a par with that of the Central Board of Secondary Education to prepare students for professional courses. But in appointment of teachers, its policy was flawed, he said.

The schools did not have adequate number of teachers to impart standard education and this resulted in dropouts. The Government, which agreed in court that it would appoint three teachers for every 81 students, still stuck to the ratio of 2:99.

But at any point of time only one teacher would be in the school, the other going out ``on duty,'' attending training and collecting data. Out of the total working days — 220 for primary schools and 180 for high schools — the teachers would be out for 115 days. So the single-teacher schools would remain closed most of the time.

Mr. Majid said had the Government properly spent Rs. 12,600 crores sanctioned under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan scheme (Education for All) for three years, primary education would have got a fillip. Instead of making new appointments, it sent regular teachers on deputation for five years to serve under the SSA scheme on a consolidated pay, after getting an undertaking that they would not demand any other incentive.

Mr. Majid said about 2,000 teachers in aided schools, enrolled on ``permission'' from the Educational Department, had been serving without salary for the past two years. For, the department was yet to accord ``approval'' for the posts.

Headmaster posts were vacant in 3,200 primary and middle schools; physical education teacher posts in 6,000 middle schools, graduate teacher posts in 2,000 middle schools and 23,000 secondary grade teacher posts in 37,000 primary schools.

Padayatra plan

The Koottani handed over memoranda to the District Collectors today. If the Government did not act before December 15, about 20,000 teachers would go on a padayatra on December 18 and 19 to 60,000 villages to highlight their demands, said Mr. Majid.

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