The Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat has planned to recruit guest teachers for government schools facing shortage of teachers in the district, president of the panchayat K.T. Shailaja Bhat said here on Monday.
At the monthly meeting of the panchayat council, she said that she had written to the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Vishveshwar Hegde Kageri to allow the panchayat to recruit guest teachers. The Government was yet to permit the panchayat to go ahead.
Meanwhile, Deputy Director for Public Instruction Moses Jayashekar told The Hindu that not all schools in the district were facing shortage of teachers.
Mamatha D.S. Gatti, a member and a former president of the panchayat, said the panchayat should pay at least Rs. 7,000 to guest teachers when they would be recruited. It was because private schools were paying teachers the same amount. The Chief Executive Officer of the panchayat told the council that K.N. Vijay Prakash said that a meeting of Block Education Officers and Deputy Director for Public Instruction would be conducted shortly to sort out issues pertaining to teacher-student ratio in schools.
M.S. Mohammed, a member of the panchayat and others, told the meeting that some schools had more teachers than required. While some schools had more students and did not have enough teachers, they said.
N. Shivaprakash, Deputy Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Dakshina Kannada, said the panchayat had set a target of constructing compound walls to 407 schools in the district this financial year. It planned to build special toilets, which should be used by normal and special children, in 825 schools in the district.
Santosh Kumar Rai, a member from Kurnadu, demanded that the council should pass a resolution to suspend panchayat development officer (PDO) of Kurnadu Gram Panchayat as he was facing some allegations. To this, Mr. Prakash said that it was not possible as business rules pertaining to the councils of taluk and zilla panchayats did not allow passing such a resolution.
