Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Define role of local bodies: KSSP

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) has called upon the government to amend the laws to clearly define the powers and responsibilities of local bodies in the running schools.

In a set of 27 recommendations submitted to the Kerala Education Rules (KER) Revision Committee on Thursday, the Parishad also wanted the government to clearly define the powers, responsibilities and structure of agencies like the PTA, school development committee and the school resource group.

It wanted the government to retain control in areas like educational content, syllabus and appointment of teachers. The supervision of the running of schools, the development of facilities, the facilities for teaching and other activities and the maintenance of health and cleanliness could be handed over to the local bodies, the recommendation said.

The schools should be divided into two sections. There should be a primary section consisting of classes one to seven and a secondary section consisting of classes eight to 12.

There should be separate heads and teachers for each section. The teacher - student proportion should be one is to 25 at the primary level, one is to 30 at the secondary level and one is to 40 at the higher secondary level. The maximum number of students in a school should be 200 at the lower primary, 350 at the upper primary and 600 at the higher secondary level. There should be an Education Officer at the panchayat or municipality level. The Education Department should be reorganised on the basis of these, the Parishad said.

The appointment of teachers should be on the basis of prescribed qualification. A teacher-eligibility test along the model of the SET should be conducted. Only those who clear the test should be appointed in schools including aided ones. There should be a curriculum and teachers for arts and sports activities. Teachers in aided schools should be appointed from the general list of the PSC. The present system of considering only the service of teachers for promotion should be changed and qualification should also be taken into consideration.

Leave with stipend should be given to the teachers to gain additional qualification, the 27-point recommendation charter said. The schools should start functioning from 8 a.m. There should be 200 working days during an academic year. Schools should take into consideration the needs physically challenged students. The role of agencies like the State Council For Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and IT@School should be defined.

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