Leaders of the Municipal Teachers’ Federation (MTF) have urged the government to rethink its stand on merger of primary schools.
Citing the clause that primary schools located within 1 km radius in urban areas would be merged with the nearest upper primary or high schools in the academic year 2022-23, they argued that the move would lead to the merger of all the 1,650 municipal elementary schools in urban areas, affecting 3.7 lakh children. “A majority of these children belong to the SC, ST, BC and other minority sections,” said S. Ramakrishna, president of the federation.
Informing that all municipal primary schools in urban pockets were located within a range of 1 km, he said the move would lead to merger of all of them. “Of these 3.7 lakh students, 70% belong to the Backward Castes, 10% SCs, 5% STs, 10% Minorities and 5% other weaker sections,” he said.
The existing 335 municipal high schools were crammed with students and these schools were in need of 1,750 additional classrooms, 2,400 teachers and 1,000 additional toilets.
Each municipal high school had a strength of 800 to 2,000 students and there were 101 schools with a strength of over 500 students. These schools were in need of additional space, classrooms, teachers and toilets.
He said it would be difficult to accommodate additional students from the merged primary schools in these high schools. Urging the authorities concerned to consider these practical difficulties before moving ahead with the merger, he said otherwise the purpose of merger in the name of reforms would not serve any purpose.
