THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A comprehensive package for rehabilitating teachers who lost their jobs following the fall in the number of students is likely to come up for discussions at the next Cabinet meeting.The package was approved by the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) monitoring committee of the General Education Department held here last week.One of the main items of the package is implementing the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) of 30:1 for schools proposed by the Right to Education Act (RTE) in the state. One of the main demands of the teachers organisations was to consider class as a unit while determining the PTR. As per the RTE, the PTR should be determined by considering the school as a unit. Over 4,514 teachers lost their jobs due to the fall in students.Another 3,615 teachers have been denied salary following the refusal of the government to approve the postings made in aided schools due to want of prior approval. The teachers had lost their jobs as protection is not extended to those who joined service after 1997.A speedy decision on the issue is needed as more teachers would lose their jobs on account of the staff fixation made on July 15. The government had issued an order to maintain status quo for a month fixing the PTR temporarily at 40:1 to overcome this issue. The PTR fixed in the Kerala Education Rules (KER) is 45:1.Aided schools would be asked to follow 1:1 ratio in future appointments with redeployment of one teacher for every new appointment.Another proposal is to delink the fixation of staff from the headcount of students taken on the sixth working day and the single day verification process held later. The staff fixation should be based on the notification issued by the government. The headcount will be taken only in case there was a fall or increase in the number of students. Another proposal was to do away with the cluster-based teachers training. In place, permanent centres for teacher training will be introduced.Teachers will be deputed to these centres for training for a 30-day period. Teachers who lost their jobs will be temporarily redeployed in their place. However, there are apprehensions of misuse of the provisions of the package by aided school managements for making unnecessary appointments.Pro-Congress Government School Teachers Union (GSTU) general secretary J.Sasi said that at the QIP monitoring committee meeting, union representatives had asked the government to impose restrictions on aided school managements on appointments made following the implementation of the 30:1 PTR in schools.
Comments
0 comment