UPTET/ BTC : Shortage of teachers cripples right to education in UP

Shortage of teachers cripples right to education 



VARANASI: It has been almost one year to the notification for the implementation of Right to Education Act in the state which promises free and compulsory education to every child in the age group of 6-14 years. It says every child deserves eight years of elementary education in an age appropriate class in the vicinity of his or her neighbourhood.

But the present status of primary and upper primary education in the district is way too far to achieve the norms of the Right to Education Act 2009 which also direct all the schools to prescribe to the norms and standards laid out in the act in three years' time. It may be mentioned here that two years have already passed since the enactment of the RTE Act.

While there is immense shortage of primary and upper primary schools, there are some schools in many parts of the district where a single teacher is taking all classes from 1-5. The target of providing safe drinking water and separate toilets for boys and girls remain a distant dream for the basic education department.

As per the norms of the RTE Act, there should be a government primary school for a population of 300 at a distance of one kilometre and there should be an upper primary school for a population of 800 at a distance of three kilometre. However, as per the records of Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) office, there are 1013 primary and 354 upper schools in the district.

It is worth mentioning here that the total population of the district as per the 2011 census is 36,82,194 and total area of the land is 1,535 square km, which implies that there should be as many as 12,273 primary schools and 4,602 upper primary schools in the district.

According to BSA Suryabhan, there were grant for only seven new primary schools, out of which three schools faced troubles due to land disputes and hence construction work could not be started. "The remaining four schools are under construction and are awaiting funds for work competition. These schools are being established in rural areas of Badagaon, Chiraigaon, Arajilines and Pindra," informed Suryabhan. Meanwhile, there are no plans to establish any upper primary school in the region.

It is noteworthy that even the norms of RTE Act suggest sufficiently greater number of schools than the existing one, no school has started in urban areas, including urban slums. According to Suryabhan, lack of land and space is posing difficulty to open new schools. While no government primary or upper primary school has been established after the implementation of the act, the existing number of teachers in the government primary and upper primary schools is also posing a challenge to the education department which has just one year to meet the norms of RTE.

"As per RTE Act norms, the ratio of teacher and students 1:30 in primary schools and 1: 35 in upper primary schools," said Suryabhan. The officials of BSA office, however, admitted that there was shortage of teachers in the district to fulfill the norms of the RTE Act.

According to the records, there are 3,423 primary teachers and 1,794 para teachers (Shiksha Mitra) while, as per the norms of RTE Act, there should be 6,148 teachers pertaining to the number of children. At the same time, there are 1,761 upper primary teachers teaching at present, while the RTE Act norms suggest 2,083 teachers.

According to Suryabhan, The Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) exam pass outs are yet not recruited, at the same time, the existing teachers are either leaving or have retired, so there is immense shortage of teachers in the schools, which is why there are many single teacher and Shiksha Mitra operating the whole school.

The department has no record of the number of drop-outs in the past academic session, while 475 students left the school before completing elementary education in the academic session 2010-2011. At present there are 1,86,301 children (age group 6-11) studying in government primary school and 13,682 studying in government aided primary schools. Also the number of children (age group 11-14) studying in upper primary section is 56,148 in government schools and 69,131 in government aided schools.


News Source : Times of India (11.4.12)