Make 1,000 Block Resource Teacher Educators faculty at government schools: Association

CHENNAI: Increased workload and a lack of new recruitments have urged the Tamil Nadu Block Resource Teacher Educators (BRTEs) Association to urge the Samagara Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) to make 1,000 of them regular teachers at government schools.

Recruited by the Teachers' Recruitment Board (TRP), BRTEs work under the SSA. They provide training to teachers, monitor out-of-school children and inclusive education provided to disabled students and keep track of facilities at government schools among others.

While 500 BRTEs should be posted as BT (Bachelor of Teaching) assistants every year as per government order 134, it has not been done from 2014 to 2021. "There has been no recruitment since 2010. While there should be nearly 6,000 BRTEs, the present strength is 2,800. With less than half of the staff, we are made to handle up to 40 schools per person in a few places instead of 10-15 schools. Considering our increased workload for several years now, the department should convert 1,000 BRTEs based on seniority and willingness this year," said KP Balaji, general secretary of TNBRTEs Association.

The association also seeks a general counselling for the remaining staff after the conversion. There are also not enough BRTEs in Tamil and Social Science. This becomes a problem while training teachers and monitoring the teaching process. This should be rectified, the association demanded.

The members also wanted the department to increase the travel allowance to Rs 3,600 as only Rs 900 is given to them since 2014, apart from filling temporary postings such as data entry operators and civil engineers.

As SSA is a scheme implemented on a fund-sharing pattern, the State gives 60% share to employ 6,000 teachers. However, the strength of the teachers has been declining since 2014. Due to this, there is also a slowdown in tracking the out-of-school children in the State, sources said.