Over 71 per cent schools have less than 3 teachers
September 30, 2009: The Times of India
BANGALORE: Even as Right to Education Bill holds out the promise of education for all children, there’s a huge stumbling block. Altogether 4.17 lakh primary schools in India have one or at best two teachers. And that’s 54% of all primary schools in the country. Worse, the number of primary schools with three or less number of teachers is as high as 5.49 lakh — that’s a staggering 71.5%. The report of the working group on elementary education and literacy for the 11th Five-Year Plan submitted to HRD ministry has said that schools across the country are woefully short of teachers.
Though there has been an impressive increase in the number of primary and upper primary school teachers in India in the past two decades, the imbalance in teacher allocation between states, districts and within districts, between rural and urban areas continues to be a major concern, sources said.
The increase in upper primary teachers is relatively higher in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. In most states, the percentage increase in upper primary teachers is more than that of primary teachers. Also, irrational allocation of primary teachers among schools and between rural and urban areas is a major issue in many states. Yet another major issue is small schools with very few teachers.
Outdated training: The working group has also pointed out that teacher training programmes have continued to be oriented towards mono-grade teaching situations.
Teaching-learning materials used in these small schools are also not geared to teaching in multi-age and multi-grade settings. The need of the hour is to examine and ensure that teachers working in these schools receive proper orientation on teaching in such contexts and conditions. There is a need to take a fresh hard look at our training programme, including content, duration, method and frequency too. It is desirable to have a comprehensive evaluation of teacher training in all states, the sources said.
