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Teacher shortages can be corrected, proves human rights group
A video on teacher shortages shot by Soriya Banu, a community member of the international media and human rights organisation, Video Volunteers has brought the government machinery in action which has hired the required teachers in a West Bengal school.
It has been repeated across the media that there is a shortage of primary school teachers and facilities throughout India. This claim is corroborated by a 2015 report which says that there was a shortage of 1.2 million teachers and almost half a million teaching posts were simply lying vacant. Even though the figures have been always present, only a recent citizen video depicting the teacher-shortage at a primary school in West Bengal brought the government machinery to life and prompted the authorities to recruit the required teachers.
The by now popular Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, (RTE) a law passed in 2009, describes the importance of free and compulsory education for children between the ages of 6-14 in India and sets a pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of 30:1. A recent report by Oxfam on the said statistics found that 37% of the government primary schools lack adequate teachers due to insufficient funding, which in turn cascades down to higher student drop out ratio. The Oxfam report went to declare that more than 600,000 in-service teachers are untrained and—worse still—6,404 schools out of the approximate 760,000 primary schools in India do not have a teacher at all.
A few months ago, Soriya Banu (a community member of the international media and human rights organisation, Video Volunteers) revealed that 3 teachers (of which 1 was a temporary instructor and the other, the principal herself) at a school in West Bengal each have to supervise roughly 200 children, varying from the ages of 6 to 12. Going by the ratio mentioned in the RTE Act, the school needs at least 5 more teachers.
Soriya writes: “Could the apathy towards the school be because only dalit and Muslim children attend? One certainly hopes not. Yet the response from the Sub-Inspector of Schools sounds rather casual. “If the Head Master asks us for more teachers we will send him some from other schools.” Surely the Head Master has already made several such requests. And does this imply that other schools in the district are adequately staffed?”
Soriya wanted her video to bring in the desired change and she went around showing her video to several local administrative officers. Eventually, Manas Chowbay, the school inspector from Kaliachak saw the video, who responded by sending a request to the chairman of region’s District Primary School Council, prompting the authorities to send a teacher to Uttar Dariyapur to fill the vacancy. Within 6 months of the report, the school got a permanent teacher and a head teacher, bringing the school's total faculty to 4.
Akashi Tripathi writes about the reason for the teacher shortage in India: “The government run schools are reluctant towards filling up the vacant permanent posts of teachers for cutting up the costs. They do this by appointing teachers temporarily on an ‘ad hoc basis’. [..] By the time the ad hoc teachers understand the needs of the students, they have to leave their jobs in the same school or move to the next school. In a situation like this, teachers themselves also look for other opportunities which are more of a ‘permanent nature’ and when they can’t find them, they move in a different direction altogether.”