Rural Schools Suffer for 'Urban Teachers'

The New Indian Express (Bhubaneswar). Sept 8, 2014

BHAWANIPATNA: The primary and upper primary education continues to remain in doldrums in Kalahandi district with shortage of teachers remaining a perennial affair in most schools. The situation has worsened with most of the teachers concentrated in Bhawanipatna Municipality limits and neighbouring places.

The district level transfer committee, which met under the chairmanship of Collector Bijay Ketan Upadhyaya here last month, expressed concern over the matter. It was revealed at the meeting that urban areas like Municipality limits and nearby places have excess teachers while the schools in remote and inaccessible areas reel under acute scarcity of teachers.

According to an official report, while there is shortage of 1,477 teachers in the district, there are 202 teachers more than sanctioned posts in Bhawanipatna block alone. Almost all blocks except Bhawanipatna are witnessing acute crunch of teachers. There total 2,317 primary and upper primary schools with student strength of  2,24,617 in the district. As per the guidelines on teacher-student ratio, there should be 7,743 teachers. As on date, there are only 6,468 teachers including regular teachers, zilla parishad teachers, Siksha Sahayaks and Gana Sikshaks.

While there are 202 surplus teachers in Bhawanipatna block, 68 more teachers than requirement are working in Municipality. There are many teachers who manage to get transferred between Bhawanipatna town and nearby urban areas for long years.

In Golamunda block, there is shortage of 180 teachers followed by 174 in Thuamul Rampur, 161 in Junagarh, 155 in Narla, 122 in Kesinga, 119 in Lanjigarh, 114 in Koksara, 112 in M Rampur, 107 in Jaipatna block, 99 in Karlamunda and 33 in Kalampur block. Most of the interior schools are run with one teacher affecting education of students.

The transfer committee, which included District Education Officer, Block Education Officers and elected representatives of the district, expressed concern over the sorry state of affairs, while deciding to take necessary steps to improve the situation.

It was decided to prepare the list of teachers in different schools and verify their service books to ascertain exact position to take action. The School and Mass Education Department has also been requested to fill up the vacant posts too.

Speaking to mediapersons, Junagarh MLA Dibyasankar Mishra said the surplus teachers in Bhawanipatna block should be posted in blocks facing acute shortage of teachers for the benefit of students.

Golamunda and Junagarh blocks which come under his Assembly segment are neglected since long and need immediate attention in this regard. Similarly, interior areas of Thuamul Rampur, Jaipatna, Narla, M Rampur and Lanjigarh blocks also need attention, he added.