Headmasters of government higher secondary schools in the district who have been mandated with the responsibility of improving success rate of students in NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) have their fingers crossed as more than 60 post-graduate teachers have gone on transfer to other districts.
Over the last week, the school heads have been struggling to keep the students engaged. They have been reportedly told by senior education department officials that teachers from other schools will be deputed with additional responsibility for the vacancies.
The 60 plus vacancies are not going to be filled any time soon, a school headmaster apprehended, explaining that the usual practice is to fill 50% of the vacancies for Post-Graduate Teacher posts by promoting BT teachers with requisite qualifications, and the remaining posts through Teacher Recruitment Board. The school heads say they are in a piquant situation with the reasoning that exerting too much pressure on the existing post-graduate teachers by burdening them with deputation could turn counter-productive.
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"Teachers are already stressed due to the introduction of new syllabi. Also, they have to prepare the students for the Plus One public examination.
Moreover, the teachers are required to impart NEET coaching at 14 centres, one each in every block, during the weekends," the worried headmaster pointed out.
Another school head said that under the present circumstances, the government should consider re-calibrating its approach of preparing students for NEET, in line with the practice adopted by government schools in some of the States with high success rates.
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In the first place, only those students who are really interested in pursuing medicine must be enrolled for the NEET coaching.
Secondly, teachers must be thoroughly acclimatised with the NEET content and the pattern of questioning and answering, before commencing the training program. Also, the government must make it a point to identify a select group of teachers to specifically impart NEET training throughout the year for the group of students with the potential to crack the exam.
"It will be unreasonable to expect the depleted strength of teachers to prepare students for public exams during the week-days and train them for NEET during the weekends," a senior post-graduate teacher said. "The new content for Plus One subjects was provided only by the end of June. The voluminous portions under the new syllabi have to be completed before December. In between, there will be two common exams and three mid-term exams. Leave alone NEET. After deducting holidays and vacations, the remaining time is insufficient to equip the students for the public exam," the teacher explained, adding that the ideal approach will be to identify students with potential early on and train them for NEET from class 9 onwards.