Unfilled vacancies, lone teachers in schools to nowhere…

ASSAM EDUCATION WOES - I

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, May 8: Why are government schools and educatiol institutions in Assam increasingly uble to attract students? Part of the answer lies in the District Information System for Education report for the year 2015-16, which paints a pathetic picture of government schools and their infrastructure.

Consider this: Over 26,000 posts of teachers are vacant in government educatiol institutions in the State.

In the lower primary schools alone, 11,416 numbers of posts are vacant. Upper primary schools are going without 6,575 teachers, while in high schools and higher secondary schools the number of vacancies is 7,705.

In government colleges and state universities, the vacancies numbered 115 and 292 respectively, as on February this year.

Moreover, 3,638 LP (class I to V) and UP (class VI to VIII) schools are being run by a single teacher.

At 583, Karbi Anglong has the highest number of single teacher LP schools, followed by Kokrajhar (293) and Kamrup (258).

Not that urban centres have gotten more government attention. Even Dibrugarh district has 202 single-teacher LP schools, Sonitpur 161 and Dhemaji 141. Shockingly, Kamrup (metro) has 55 single-teacher LP schools.

This explains why primary schools remain closed if one teacher bunks his duty or goes on leave.

Idequate number of teachers and lack of ratiolization in postings are prime reasons for the grim scerio in education at a time when the country is embarking on the Right to Education Act which assures elementary education to all citizens.

According to a report by the RTE, over 98,000 primary schools - around 12 per cent - across the country remain closed on any working day, mainly due to absence of the only teacher in the institution.