Thiruvannamalai: Govt high school has only two teachers for 145 pupils

Thiruvannamalai: Students of the Government Adi-Dravidar High School of Kettavaram Palayam, which is about 40 km from here, demonstrated before the District Collector’s office here on Monday, demanding adequate teaching staff. The school now has only two teachers to handle all the 145 students in classes 1-10.

“We have been repeatedly petitioning the Collector to address the severe shortage of teachers in this school. We have approached several other officials and even the local (Kalasapakkam) MLA, Panneerselvam. Since no rock moved, the parents and students decided to agitate before the Collector’s office today”, said local human rights activist A.Sivaraman, who was among the protesters.

According to a parent, the shortage of teachers got worse over the last seven years. “There were four teachers till last week but two were transferred out. The head mistress too has been transferred. Now there is one head master to handle all the classes from one to five, while there is just one teacher to take care of cla-sses six to ten”, said the parent, requesting anonymity.

“The two teachers cluster the students of all the classes and take lessons. There's no other option since there are only two of them for the entire school. Families have been pulling out their wards from the school due to the steep drop in teaching standards. There were 226 students in 2015. The strength fell to 186 last year and now there are just 145 kids”, said Sivaraman, bitter that the Government has remained indifferent towards the plight of Dalit kids.

The anger of the children was evident in the posters they held before the Collectorate. “Is there really a shortage of teachers, or is the shortage limited to only Adi-Dravidar schools?” screamed a poster.