The Hindu : Karnataka News : Classes for these children are held in the open

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Friday, Mar 14, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Classes for these children are held in the open

Staff Correspondent

Residents of Upparhatti village have locked the school

They are upset over ‘negligent and unprofessional’ attitude of the teachers
‘Four of the five teachers interested only in their personal work’

Protest: A class in progress outside the premises of government high school in Upparhatti village of Challakere taluk on Thursday.

Chitradurga: Classes for over 200 students of government high school in Upparhatti village of Challakere taluk are being held in the open on the premises of temples and houses.

The school has been locked by the residents of the village as they do not want their children to study there.

Upset over the “negligent” and “unprofessional” attitude of the teachers, the residents of the village and members of the School Development and Monitoring Committee (SDMC) decided not to allow the children to study in the school until the “erring” teachers are either transferred or suspended.

According to the residents, four of the five teachers in the school are not doing their duty properly. Most of the time they quarrel over petty issues in the school or do their personal work, they alleged.

“For the last three days classes were being held outside the school. We don’t want these teachers to teach our children. We had been tolerating them for over two years, but didn’t find any solution. So we took this decision,” said the SDMC president Jayanna.

Mr. Jayanna, gram panchayat president Shardamma and several residents of the village complained that the four teachers, including the headmaster of the school, were interested only in their personal work.

Some students told The Hindu that their teachers did not conduct the classes regularly. Exams were also not being conducted in the school, they said.

The teachers would give us questions in advance and tell us to get the answer sheets the next day, said a student of class eight.

People said that they had been demanding the authorities concerned to transfer the teachers, but in vain.

When contacted, the teachers — Papaiah, K.C. Mahantesh, N. Madhukar and A.M. Boraiah, the headmaster, — levelled allegations against each other.

Mr. Boraiah accused the assistant teachers of not cooperating with him. The other teachers alleged that Mr. Boraiah was playing politics in the school. Classes are now being conducted by the fifth teacher with the help of two teachers appointed by the SDMC on temporary basis.

When contacted, Block Education Officer Umadevi said on Thursday that the department had decided to transfer Mr. Papaiah and Mr. Mahantesh and depute two teachers from a nearby village to the school till the exams were over.

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