Students and social activists are eagerly waiting for the order of the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KCPCR) on stopping the process of redeployment of teachers. Commission’s chairperson Kripa Amar Alva had said here on Saturday that she will pass orders on the complaints questioning the process after her meeting with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday.
As many as 300 complaints have been filed by students and child rights activists from across the State questioning the process of redeployment of teachers.
They have contended that redeployment of additional teachers in the middle of an academic year will affect quality of education. Students and members of School Development and Monitoring Committee members also met Ms. Alva here on Saturday.
Hearing students and activists, Ms. Alva said that there was no violation of Right to Education Act as the Education Department has incorporated in the formula for calculation of additional teachers the norm of one teacher for every 30 students.
But this redeployment of additional teachers, she said, had denied students of quality education.
Challenge
Activist Renni D’Souza said that for calculating additional teachers the department was following the formula of one teacher for 10 or less students and two teachers for students between 11 and 60.
This formula was against the RTE norm that stipulated that a school should have a minimum of two teachers. “With this redeployment, there are 15 schools in the district that have only one teacher,” he said.
Mr. D’Souza said that the government has not ensured subject-wise teachers in primary schools. He said that they would have raised these points if the commission had conducted hearing on the complaints. “We filed our complaints a week ago and we are yet to get summons from the commission,” he said.
He hoped that the commission’s order on their complaints would address concerns raised by them. He said that the commission should direct the government to appoint teachers against vacant posts.
