Students of Government Higher Secondary School at Sukkampatti near Manapparai boycotted the mid-term exam on Thursday and staged a demonstration on the premises citing lack of preparation due to inadequacy of teachers.
Portions in Biology, Chemistry and Computer Science could not be handled in the school due to the absence of teachers. While the Biology teacher was on leave due to a critical illness, the two other teachers had gone on transfer in the recent counselling exercise, department sources said.
The students relented after a while and went back to the classes after a senior official who rushed to the school to defuse the situation assured that teachers in the vacant posts will be posted from Monday onwards.
Since the headmaster had reportedly expressed difficulty in appointing teachers on temporary basis through the parent-teacher association, the Chief Educational Officer M. Ramakrishnan had assured to depute teachers for the time being. Efforts will be taken to post teachers in the school through the PTA, the CEO said.
Teacher organisations complain that the vacancies had arisen in the school due to a change introduced this year in the procedure of district-to-district transfers. In a deviation from the usual practice of commonly highlighting subject-wise vacancies across the State in the online database and filling them with aspiring applicants, this time, only vacancies in the districts that were below the State average in terms of overall pass percentage were made known, a functionary of an organisation for post-graduation teachers said.
Since the performance of Tiruchi district is above State average, students of the understaffed schools in remote parts ended up as the sufferers, he explained.