RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, April 17: A joint study of Sanyukta Gram Sabha Manch (SGSM), Garu and Gyan Vigyan Samiti (GVS) suggests that Jharkhand’s schools are in a dire situation due to the severe shortage of teachers. While across the country single-school teachers are 22.2 percent, Jharkhand has 30 percent of its school single-teachers.
The organizations, working for ensuring the right to education to poor children, observed through its study that Jharkhand has a high proportion of single-teacher schools in the state. If data compiled by them using a unified district information system for education is anything to go by, the state tops the list amongst the 22 others in terms of proportion of its students enrolled in single-teacher schools.
Jharkhand has a total of 35,438 government schools, out of which 21,283 (nearly 60%) are primary schools. Out of these 35,438 schools, 6904 are single-teacher schools, i.e., 20%. Of these 6904 schools, 6388 schools are primary schools. This means that 93% of all single-teacher schools are primary schools. And 30% of all primary schools are single-teacher schools.
According to their observation, every 5th student in the state is in a single-teacher school and 1/3rd of all primary schools in the state are run by only one-teachers and are violating the Right to Education Act 2009. Single-teacher schools are spread across all districts in the state with Dumka, West Singhbhum, and Ranchi having the highest, their study suggests.
Organising a press conference at XISS, office bearers of the organization said that in Garu (Latehar district) students, parents, school management committee (SMC) members took out a rally and organized a public meeting at block office last Thursday where the villagers informed the block officials about the issues being faced by students at the local school.
“Poonam Kumari, a middle school student from Rud village, demanded at least six more teachers to teach multiple subjects -currently, her school had 145 students, and only 1 teacher,” one of the officer bearers said.
The organizations feel that it is not possible to provide quality education in single-teacher schools. “When the teacher is absent, or busy with record-keeping, the children are left to themselves. Even when the teacher is available, how is she supposed to teach children of five different grades on her own,” an officer bearer of the organization said.
The organizations have urged CM Hemant Soren to correct the wrong and hire teachers so that there are no-more single teacher schools in the state.
Those representing SGSM and GVS were Vishwanath Singh and Ravi Singh. They were supported by Sabhilnath Paikra and Aminta Devi from SGSM.
