Additional post creation for State schools is in the last phase, Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty has said. Staff fixation to posts other than additional posts in government and aided schools for the 2022-23 academic year has been completed, Mr. Sivankutty said in a statement on Sunday.
General Education department officials said the process of creating additional posts on the basis on increase in student strength was on. Higher-level verification of proposals had been completed in the wake of the Kerala Education Rules amendment last year that required preliminary verification by education officers to be followed up by that from the Director of General Education (DGE). The DGE’s recommendations has been reported to the government for concurrence of the Finance department.
Before the KER was amended to check bogus school admission, the verification was done by education offices and post creation approved on its basis. Only appeals reached the DGE. Now, the process has dragged on into the new calendar year, drawing criticism.
Staff fixation for 2019 had been followed the past two academic years. There are 38,32,395 students in classes 1 to 10 in government, aided, and recognised unaided schools in the State as per the sixth working day headcount this academic year. Of them, 3,03,168 took admission to class 1 this year, the statement said.
Besides the students last year, 1,19,970 students newly joined classes 2 to 10 in State schools. Of them, 44,915 took admission to government schools and 75,055 in aided schools.
Of the newly joined students, 24% shifted from recognised unaided schools, while the remaining were from schools following other syllabi. The maximum number of students took admission to class 5 – 32,545, followed by 28,791 in class 8.
In unaided schools
The number of students in each class of unaided schools shows a drop this year as compared to that last year. The number of students in all classes except 1, 4, and 10 in government schools and 1, 4, 7, and 10 in aided schools has registered an increase when comparing the number of children in each class this academic year to last year, the statement said. There are 7.69 lakh students in the higher secondary classes.
