Abide by court order in aided schools’ issue: NSS

The Nair Service Society (NSS) has called upon the authorities to resolve the impasse in the aided school sector on the basis of the High Court order issued on Thursday in a case filed by them against the government order 199/2011/G.Edn. dated October 1, 2011, on the Scientific Methods of Appointment and Deployment of Teachers in Aided Schools.

G. Sukumaran Nair, general secretary, NSS, said the High Court, through its order, had invalidated all the government orders issued in this regard. “It is time they took a realistic review of the situation and resolve issues on the basis of the order,” he said.

Two suggestions

In this regard, the NSS had put forward the following suggestions, he said. One, to amend the provisions in the Kerala Education Rules (KER) which has fixed the teacher-student ratio as 1:45. It should be brought on par with the provision in the Right to Education Act which stipulates a ratio of 1:30 from Class I to V and 1: 35 in Class VI to X; Two, declare all the excess, permanent employees in the aided schools protected employees and allow them to continue under the respective managements so that they could be redeployed whenever vacancies arise. The Teacher Bank system has been found to be ‘unscientific, impractical and unnecessary’ and should be terminated, he said. The new stipulation that appointments to a vacancy could be made only after the Director of Public Instruction (DPI) notifies it, should be amended to its old form.