Contrary to popular perception that government schools are grappling with shortage of teachers, data by the Department of Primary and Secondary Education reveals that the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) in government schools is far better than that in private schools.
According to the Economic Survey of Karnataka 2018–19, the PTR in government elementary schools is 26:1, while that in aided and unaided schools is 55:1 and 31:1, respectively. For the 2018–19 academic year, 89.29% of the total 3.15 lakh sanctioned posts of teacher was filled in government lower primary schools and higher primary schools. Similarly, in aided schools, 75.37% of the total 22,055 sanctioned posts of teacher was filled.
The survey, however, acknowledged there are variations across districts, blocks and at the school level in the PTR in government schools, but said the government has adopted a policy to rationalise teacher deployment to correct such imbalances.
Experts pointed out that the PTR is skewed in several north Karnataka districts where there is a huge shortage of teachers. Also, there are thousands of schools, which are run by single teachers, they said.
Basavaraj Gurikar, president, Karnataka State Government Primary School Teachers’ Association, said, “The PTR for government schools is high, but many teachers teach children of multiple grades and have to often combine classes, which brings down the quality of learning. Many schools rely solely on a single teacher,” he said, and added that the association’s demand was to have one teacher for every grade and every subject in a school.
Department officials said according to last year’s data, there were 14,712 government primary schools that had less than 30 students and 25,500 teachers are working in these schools. Some of these schools include those with zero admission.
“To address this issue and manage our teachers more effectively, during the previous budget we proposed merging of 28,847 government and aided schools with low admission rates with 8,530 nearby government schools.
But this proposal was shelved owing to opposition from different stakeholders,” an official said.
Spike in PU colleges, but a few are government-run
Over the last nine years, there has been a huge spike in the number of private pre-university (PU) colleges in the State. However, the number of government PU colleges has increased only marginally during the same period.
According to the Economic Survey of Karnataka, the number of government colleges for the 2018–19 academic year stood at 1,231 — a 3.36% increase from 1,191 colleges in 2010–11 academic year. During the same period, the number of private PU colleges increased by 83.88%. The number of private PU colleges stood at 3,194, an increase from 1,737 in 2010–11.
The number of aided colleges has increased from 640 in 2010–2011 to 797 in 2018–19. The number of corporation schools with PU classes has remained the same at 13 since 2010–11.
Sources in the Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE) said though they had been sending proposals to start new PU colleges to the State government, they were not getting approved owing to financial constraints.
“Private PU colleges charge exorbitant fees and many students from poor socio-economic backgrounds are forced to go to private PU colleges as government PU colleges do not have adequate capacity,” said Soorya S., a pre-university student.
DPUE officials pointed out that there was demand for private PU colleges offering integrated courses. These colleges coach students for competitive examinations as well as teach them pre-university syllabus. These colleges continue to offer integrated courses despite it being illegal.
Enrolment for arts stream
There was an increase in the percentage of students who picked arts courses for the 2018–19 academic year at the pre-university (PU) level, while there was a marginal dip in the number of students who opted science courses.
From 28% in the previous year, the arts enrolment went up to 30.02% in 2018–19. On the other hand, science enrolment went down from 33.55% from the previous year to 31.11% in 2018–19, though science courses continued to be more sought after than art.
However, in keeping with the trend over the past few years, commerce courses are the most sought after — both at the PU as well as the undergraduate level. In the same academic year, of the total 6.4 lakh students who enrolled for PU courses, 2.48 lakh opted for commerce stream. This accounts for 38.86% of enrolments. At the II PU level too, 38.44% students are from the commerce stream.
The demand for commerce stream is seen at the undergraduate level as well. As many as 45.97% of the total 5.06 lakh students have enrolled for B.Com. and BBM courses. BA students constitute 38.4% of the total students, while BSc. courses were pursued by 15.63% students.
