The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Teachers’ rally today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 06, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Teachers’ rally today

Staff Reporter

Chennai: Members of the Tamil Nadu Primary School Teachers Federation will organise a rally on August 6 to urge the State Government to implement the “one-teacher-per class” norm as ordered by the Supreme Court.

The present system of two teachers for every 99 students failed to help the cause of education in rural areas, the federation’s general secretary S. Abdul Majid told reporters on Saturday. He said the federation’s recent talks with School Education Department had not yielded results. Members have planned to stage protests on August 7 and 8 too.

Since 2001, many rural Government schools had been closed down because the student strength was less than 20, Mr. Majid said.

Transfer and salaries

The ‘excess teachers’ were transferred to other government departments or, in some cases, not paid salaries. Schools with five teachers now had only two teachers to manage five classes, he said.

“How can we implement new methods such as activity-based learning without even one teacher per class?” he asked.

The federation estimates that at least 2,000 schools in Tamil Nadu, including 63 in Chennai, have been closed down since 2001.

As a result about one lakh teachers on the rolls have either been transferred or were without work and student enrolment rate had fallen steeply, Mr. Majid said.

The federation would also demand that the Provident Fund accounts of teachers be managed by the Accountant General’s office in order to prevent misappropriation of funds.

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