A school in Tamil Nadu demonstrated before the District collector’s office on Monday demanding for adequate teaching staff. As the Government Adi-Dravidar High School of Kettavaram Palayam has only two teachers to handle all the 145 students in classes 1-10.
“We have been repeatedly petitioning the Collector to address the severe shortage of teachers in this school. We have approached several other officials and even the local (Kalasapakkam) MLA, Panneerselvam. Since no rock moved, the parents and students decided to agitate before the Collector’s office today”, said local human rights activist A.Sivaraman reported Deccan Chronicle.
According to the parents, the inadequacy of teaching staff has increased over the past seven years.
“There were four teachers till last week but two were transferred out. The headmistress too has been transferred. Now there is one headmaster to handle all the classes from one to five, while there is just one teacher to take care of classes six to ten”, said a parent.
This incident gives an insight to the loopholes of the Indian education system. And like most other issues faced by the rural, this one too has gone unnoticed by the government. The ignorance turned the children bitter which was evident in the sort of posters they carried to the demonstration.
“Is there really a shortage of teachers, or is the shortage limited to only Adi-Dravidar schools?” read a poster.
“The two teachers cluster the students of all the classes and take lessons. There’s no other option since there are only two of them for the entire school. Families have been pulling out their wards from the school due to the steep drop in teaching standards. There were 226 students in 2015. The strength fell to 186 last year and now there are just 145 kids”, said Sivaraman.
