Government gives nod for filling vacant teaching posts in Kannada schools

BENGALURU: Quality of education imparted in aided Kannada high schools across the state is set to improve with the government permitting the filling of vacant teaching posts, feel education experts.
The ad-hoc arrangement that was in place due to freeze in appointment of teachers had affected the quality of teaching in aided schools, said Sri Siddhartha Education Society (SSES) joint secretary and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief G Parameshwara. Tumakuru-based SSES runs over 84 educational institutions, including 33 high schools.

 “For instance, in one of the high schools, we had appointed a guest teacher to teach mathematics. The ad-hoc arrangement proved to be disastrous as all the students failed in mathematics,’’ he said. Parameshwara said their institution had received permission to fill 34 vacant teaching posts.

The filling of vacant teaching posts will also increase enrolment of students in aided Kannada medium schools from next academic year, Parameshwara added.  Superintendent in Department of Public Instruction N Shankar Narayan Prasad told Express that the government had permitted filling of 6,025 teaching posts that had fallen vacant until December 31, 2014.

Chief Whip of BJP in the Legislative Council Captain Ganesh Karnik said that it was the BJP government which first decided to encourage private Kannada medium schools by releasing grant to such schools established from 1987 up to 1995. Subsequently, the grant was extended up to 2006. After the BJP government fell, the grants were not released to schools due to resource crunch.

The government recently permitted filling of teaching posts in primary schools, high schools (fallen vacant up to December 31, 2014) and junior colleges (fallen vacant before December 2015). The vacant posts in many primary schools could not be filled due to the strength of students being lesser than student-teacher ratio (25 students per teacher). “Thus, many teachers in primary schools, had to be redeployed keeping student-teacher ratio in mind,’’ Captain Karnik said. 

64 AIDED SCHOOLS SHUT  
As many as 64 aided Kannada medium schools across the state were closed down after they failed to meet the eligibility criteria. “The teachers and students were accommodated in neighbouring schools,’’ Superintendent in Department of Public Instruction (DPI) N Shankar Narayan Prasad told Express.