Bhubaneswar: In many urban schools, the number of teachers is much higher compared to the number of students. On the other hand, several rural schools are suffering from a severe shortage of teachers, with some schools even being run by a single teacher.
There have been numerous requests and complaints to the government for the appointment of teachers. To address this, the government has decided to review the teacher allocation list at the district level soon.
Teachers from schools with surplus staff will be transferred to schools lacking teachers. A directive has been sent to District Education Officers (DEOs) by the Directorate of Primary Education.
In an urgent letter, the Directorate clearly mentioned that while there is an excess of teachers in urban schools, rural schools have far fewer than required. In many cases, a single teacher is running an entire school.
Following the student-teacher ratio guidelines, necessary steps will be taken to ensure that:
Urban schools will no longer have surplus teachers.
Teacher-student ratios in remote rural areas will be improved.
Teachers will be appointed to rural schools.
Teachers from urban areas and block headquarters will be transferred to rural schools as soon as possible.
By the 30th of this month, efforts will be made to transfer teachers to schools where there is currently no teacher or only one teacher.
Moreover, it has been instructed that teaching activities should not be disrupted during this process. A report regarding the transfers must be submitted to the Directorate.
As per the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) and the Right to Education (RTE) Act:
Each primary school must have one teacher for every 24 students.
At the high school level, there must be one teacher for every 27 students.
A minimum of two teachers must be present in every school.
Currently, there are more than 48,000 government schools across the state.