700 teaching posts vacant in 1,500 schools in Bidar dist.

BIDAR, July 14, 2016: The district, that has been performing poorly in the SSLC examinations for decades, seems to be facing a crisis in school education. As many as 700 posts of teachers in the district’s 1,500 schools have been vacant for at least 10 years now. At least 21 schools have just one teacher and of them, five have more than 150 students. What is worrying is the skewed distribution of teachers. While, schools in the city have more teachers than the required number, the village schools have lower strength. For instance, the Government Urdu School in Bidar’s old city area has 12 teachers teaching less than 50 children, while the government school in Karanji has just one teacher for 300 students. Plans of the district administration to reassign teachers — by taking away excess teachers from city schools to fill vacancies in needy schools— have hit a road block with the teachers association saying it would oppose efforts at deputation or reassignment. The association has two major concerns — the list of excess teachers prepared by the Education Department is incomplete and confusing and that teachers, who have begun teaching classes for this year, would be disturbed if they were to be deputed to far off places. If at all the government plans to reassign teachers, it has to discuss with the association and take its office-bearers into confidence, they said in a memorandum submitted to Deputy Director of Public Instruction Shivakumar Swamy. It is wrong to blame teachers alone for the poor performance of students, feels Ravindra Reddy Malipatil, president of the District Primary School Teachers’ Association. Officials should also introspect about what has gone wrong with the system, he added. Deputy Commissioner Anurag Tewari, however, says the reassignment process will not stop. “Vacancies of teachers and their skewed postings, and lack of a system of regular monitoring of their performances are the reasons for the poor performance. There is no debate about this. The association cannot say teachers cannot be reassigned. If they have concerns about the process of reassignment, I can assure them that it will be scientific and transparent and aimed at the overall well being of students,” he said. The Hindu