SMALL SCHOOLS GO ABEGGING FOR TEACHERS

Four months into the new academic year, several schools are still placing advertisements in newspapers looking for ‘immediate’ recruitment of teachers. So desperate are these small private schools that the ‘qualifications required’ column starts with M.Ed., B.Ed., M.Sc., B.Sc., and BA and trickles down to fresh graduates. Some schools are willing to settle for untrained teachers as well.

The school – being relatively smalltime – do not have the clout into insist on an undertaking from teachers that they would not quit in the middle of an academic year. Personal reasons like getting married and moving out of the city add to the woes of schools. “Thus these schools are often forced to make fresh appointments every few months,” an analyst said. “Jobs in call centers are luring away many teachers. They pay over Rs.7000 per month, whereas small schools can only afford a maximum salary of Rs.4,500,” said New Cambridge High School, Goshamahal correspondent Md.Amin, who is looking for a computer teacher since last year. In fact, call centers are the biggest poachers where experienced teachers are offered as much as Rs.15,000 – a big jump from their otherwise mediocre salaries.

As a result, several schools have no teacher even for core subjects like mathematics, life sciences and social sciences. “Schools are just not able to fill vacancies in the social studies department as there are hardly any BA graduates willing to take up teaching. There are even fewer who have history, civics or economics at their Intermediate level even if they do have a B.ED degree,” Joint Action Committee of Recognized Schools Assocition convenor S.Srinivas Reddy said.

Also the B.Ed, graduates are mostly people with Telugu Medium background and their English is not polished enough to make them fit for English medium schools, he added.

Also a qualified teacher is in high demand everywhere leading to schools topping each others, offers to hook him or her. “If a school offers even a couple of hundreads more, the teachers will jump at it,” said Francis D ‘costa, an educationist and advisor to schools. Most schools employ graduates on a temporary basis.

“It is a gamble with children’s education, but the competition is too fierce and it is imperative to run a successful school,” Srinivas Reddy said. The situation is no better in government schools. Last year too, many of the primary school teachers were deputed to high schools in the last months of the academic year so that syllabi of class VII and X students, who sit for public examinations, is completed on time.

Source: The Times of India, Hyderabad