The contentious issue of lack of teachers in the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) schools stems from factors including lack of teacher redeployment, lapsed posts and hiring temporary staff. The officials of the civic body now say they are trying to address all the issues to ensure that the children get a quality education.
On August 1 every year, the civic body’s Education Department takes stock of the strength of the schools under its purview. In cases where student strength is less, teachers can be redeployed to schools where the strength is higher, where there is a need to satisfy the pupil-teacher ratio. However, redeployment has not been done for quite some time, says an official, as teachers have challenged transfer orders. “Teachers say that if they are transferred, they are given a junior position in the next school,” the official says.
After taking over as Deputy Commissioner of Education in the civic body earlier this year, Sharanya Ari realised that an analysis of teacher vacancies was an urgent demand. “If a post is vacant for three or more years and regular deployment and transfer counselling do not happen, the position lapses and a request has to be sent to the government to revive it,” she says. In cases where teacher strength is low, power has been given to the School Management Committees to hire temporary teachers who are paid through GCC funds.
Around 1,200 posts have lapsed in GCC schools, making it impossible to hire teachers to fill those posts. “To revive a lapsed post, it takes time as it has to go through various departments like School Education, Finance and Human Resource Management along with finding the original Government Order when the position was created. Considering the age old schools, this exercise becomes challenging. But I have put together a team to resolve this issue on a high priority basis,” Ms. Ari says.
The Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) has also added to the problem. Now, teachers can be hired only after clearing this test, but there are still teachers who haven’t taken it. In June, the Madras High Court ruled that those appointed as secondary grade teachers/graduate teacher/B.T. assistant before July 29, 2011, must be allowed to continue in service with increments even if they haven’t cleared TET. However, they made it clear that the test must be cleared for promotional aspects.
A total of 139 government schools were merged with the GCC and teachers have been given the choice to work with the civic body or move to other government schools. Teachers chose to transfer to government schools because they could lose their existing, if any, position of seniority.
J. John, the AIADMK councillor of ward 84 in Amabattur, says the education of more than 900 students from areas such as Patravakkam, Korattur, Padi, Mannurpettai and Kachanankuppam has been affected because 21 teachers, including the principal of Chennai High School, Korattur, opted to transfer to State government-run schools.
“The GCC has appointed only eight new teachers on a temporary basis for one year. Parents of students who appear for public examinations said they were worried that the new teachers might not be able to help their children score well in the exams. Over 50% of the students belong to poor families of the Scheduled Castes and 40% belong to poor families from Other Backward Castes. There are many private schools in the area but students cannot afford the fees,” Mr. John says.
“Only 860 teachers were willing to come to GCC school, and we now have 167 positions vacant,” Ms. Ari says.
The GCC is seeking applications across the State from Chief Educational Officers from other districts to allow interested teachers to join civic body-run schools in the special counselling that will be held shortly to fill these vacancies.
(With inputs from Aloysius Xavier Lopez)
