According to the teachers' union, more than 1,000 headmaster posts and thousands of teacher posts are vacant leading to shortage in schools.
Published Aug 13, 2024 | 11:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 13, 2024 | 11:00 AM
Representative image of students in Tamil Nadu (iStock)
With more than 1,000 headmaster posts and thousands of teacher posts vacant in Tamil Nadu government schools, teachers are concerned and find it difficult to navigate teaching students.
Even though all government schools come under the Department of School Education, different wings under the department are responsible for primary and secondary schools.
About 25,50,997 students are studying in 31,336 primary schools spread across Tamil Nadu with about 1,08,537 teachers employed to teach the kids. Meanwhile, in 6,218 secondary schools across the state, 27,24,256 students are enrolled with 1,16,863 teachers tasked with teaching students.
The shortage of headmasters and teachers is causing dire straits for teachers and students alike due to the government’s failure to fill the said vacancies. According to the numbers available with the teachers’ union, more than 1,000 headmaster posts are vacant among the 37,000 primary, middle, and high schools across Tamil Nadu.
To address the shortage of teachers, the government appoints ‘surplus teachers, ones who aren’t officially employed by the government but are selected depending on their qualifications. They are usually teachers from government-aided schools, employed temporarily to address the shortage of teachers.
Surplus or part-time teachers in government schools had earlier approached the Madras High Court seeking that they are given preference while recruiting teachers for permanent posts. The case is still in the court as they await a favourable verdict. They have worked for several years in government schools and they have passed the age limit to write Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), so they can’t get recruited the usual way.
They had launched a protest recently demanding that they are given preference in recruitment and the government government pacified them by assuring that their demand will be addressed. However, no action has been taken so far.
In this context, speaking on conditions of anonymity, a permanent teacher belonging to the union told South First, “Officials cite the surplus teachers’ case in the High Court as a reason for delay in filling the vacancies. This also means that senior teachers who are eligible to be promoted as headmasters are stuck being teachers.”
He further said that, there has a lot of promising welfare programmes provided by the DMK government in Tamil Nadu to students like free cycles, free books and breakfast. But, “without enough teachers to educate the children, students won’t really benefit from it.”
Teachers are concerned that education department officials aren’t taking any step to fill up the vacant posts in both primary and secondary schools. With the quarterly exam for the current academic year set to be held in the first week of September, teachers and students in several schools suffer due to lack of headmasters to guide them through it.
The last recruitment to primary school teachers was in 2021-2022, when only a meagre 14 posts were filled. And for secondary schools, 3,043 vacancies were filled in the year 2022-2023.
Adding to the shortage of teachers, the ones currently employed also face issues like having to fill details in the Education Management Information System or EMIS app everyday. From students’ attendance details to details of their family and health issues, teachers are mandated to update information in the app.
This hinders productively educating students say teachers, who demand that at least one or two assistants are employed in every school to update the app.
(Edited by Neena)
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