SRINAGAR,OCT 8:All schools in Wagoora zone are overstaffed. the tall claims of the school education department to streamline the student-teacher ratio in government schools, the educational institutions in Wagoora zone of Barmulla district continue to reflect a disturbing situation.Government middle school Thindma is a case in place.The government has posted an allegedly influential lot of teachers in this school who are virtually having a field day at this institution.The student population of this school is 13 while as the number of teachers posted there is seven.According to norms, the teacher–pupil ration in elementary schools should be 1:30. But in this middle school, the norm has been thrown to winds. For every teacher there are less than two students.However the officials blame the clubbing of schools saying that the merger of institutions has produced the surplus staff.The department has posted 32 teachers for 88 students in four schools including a Kasturba Gandhi BalikaVidyale (KGBV) residential school. The aggregate teacher-pupil ratio in four schools is 1:3.Thindma is not the lone case where the department has posted surplus staff, all the schools in Wagoora zone are overstaffed and have meager student population.In KGBV Wagoora, the student population is only 23 while the department has posted 10 teachers in this residential school.Similarly, government middle schools Bangdara has eight teachers for 29 students while as middle school Durhama has seven teachers for 23 students.The chief education officer (CEO) Baramulla Abdul Ahad attributed the presence of surplus staff to the clubbing of the schools ordered by the government for past years.“The schools falling in the zone mostly have very less enrollment due to which we have surplus staff in these institutions,” CEO Baramulla said, adding that the department has already merged various schools but it didn’t increase the enrollment.CEO Baramulla admitted the most of the schools in the zone have surplus staff. “It is already in my knowledge that schools here have surplus staff. Some surplus staff of clubbed schools has been adjusted in KGBV,” he said.When asked why the department did not utilized the services of surplus staff of Wagoora in teacher deficient schools of other zones, he said the surplus teachers are recruited under ReT scheme and can’t be displaced from their original place of postings.“The surplus staff in schools of Wagoora zone is not recruited under state cadre but are ReT teachers who can’t be displaced from their original postings,” he said.During the current academic session, the department reshuffled teachers including ReTs to other schools under the grab of”academic arrangement”.
This middle school in Baramulla has 7 teachers for 13 students.
