look news india
During the budget session of Punjab Assembly, when Education Minister Harjot Bains proposed to close minority middle schools, the political temperature of the entire state started boiling. Especially the teachers unions made it a big issue and announced a fierce struggle. Is the government going to exert force? Is the decision on the struggle of teacher unions valid? Is it true that the government is suffering huge financial losses due to low number of students? 'Punjabi Jagran' has taken up the responsibility of researching the report on this entire matter. We inspected the admissions for the academic year 2023-24 in schools of 8 academic blocks of the district and found that the admission situation is very poor.
76 schools have more teachers than the prescribed number
The schools of SAS Nagar are divided into 8 educational blocks. Analysis of the data shows that under the rationalization policy, the number of students in the middle schools of all the blocks is very less and the number of teachers is very high. The teacher-student ratio is flat in 80 percent of the schools in the district. Out of the total number of schools in the district, there are 9 schools where the ratio of the number of teachers to the number of students does not meet the norms specified in the rationalization policy. Now the Education Department has taken a big decision on this issue and has taken the initiative to create one big school by merging these schools.
18 schools have less than ten students in a class
The situation is so serious that in 18 schools the number of students in one class is not even crossing the ten mark. Government Middle School Malakpur of Majri Block is a clear example of this. This is the only school in the district where 4 teachers come to teach only 14 students of classes 6th, 7th and 8th. This school has only 2 students in class VI and 5 and 7 students in class VII and VIII respectively. The second lowest number of students is 18 in the middle school of Mirzapur village of the same block, where 4 female teachers teach.
Government resources are being misused
As per the rules made by the Education Department, a section is completed with the strength of 45 students. This means that the teacher must have at least 45 students in his class. If the total number of students in a school is not 45, then how will sections be formed there and there will be a loss of government resources. Currently, Class VIII students study at least 6 subjects (other than Computer and Physical Education) and are required to be given 6 teachers. If we talk about all-round development, then it is also important to be a teacher of computer, health and physical education. Till the year 2019, the number of teachers in these schools remained till 6. Later this number was reduced to four and till now only four teachers come to teach. If we talk in terms of ratio, if four teachers teach 180 students then the ratio is correct, but if the students in the school are only 14 or 18 then it will be called illegal use of resources.