The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Five lakh dropped out of primary school'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Five lakh dropped out of primary school'

Special Correspondent

Government urged to take remedial action

CUDDALORE: The Tamilaga Aarambapalli Asiriyar Koottani has voiced concern over the "alarming dropout rate" of students from primary schools in the State.

In 2001, there were 70 lakh students in 37,000 schools. This number had come down to 65 lakhs (2004-05), said S. Abdul Majid, general secretary in a release here on Monday.

Holding the State Government responsible for the state of affairs in the primary education sector, Mr Majidurged the government to take remedial action. In the last three years, as many as five-lakh students had dropped out of school, as their parents had felt that the schools did not have adequate number of teachers to impart quality education.

Mr Majid said the government had not adhered to the prescribed teacher-student ratio (1:40) by failing to fill up the vacancies. The government had also arbitrarily reduced the number of teachers in 65 per cent of the village schools, he alleged.The government had reduced the number of teacher posts from 1.93 lakhs to 1.20 lakhs, and of these 17,000 were lying vacant. Mr. Majid said that in nearly 6,200 middle schools there were no teachers, and 3,200 schools were functioning without headmasters.

The Koottani has proposed to stage demonstration in 1,000 villages in June.

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