Govt flouts RTE norms on teacher-student ratio

MUKTSAR: In utter violation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the state Education Department has issued a circular (which is in possession of The Tribune) to all district education officers (DEOs) in the state to complete the process of rationalisation of teachers on the basis of student-teacher ratio of 30:1 for primary classes, 40:1 for Classes VI to X and 50:1 for XI and XII.

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, May 13

In utter violation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the state Education Department has issued a circular (which is in possession of The Tribune) to all district education officers (DEOs) in the state to complete the process of rationalisation of teachers on the basis of student-teacher ratio of 30:1 for primary classes, 40:1 for Classes VI to X and 50:1 for XI and XII.

However, the RTE Act, which is applicable from class I to VIII, says that the student-teacher ratio has to be 30:1.

Talking to The Tribune, a number of teachers said the decision taken by the department was in violation of the Act and it would also affect the studies of students. “This step seems to have been taken to avoid doing the huge exercise of creating new posts and filling the vacant posts. If the rationalisation is done as per the RTE Act, a number of schools will be requiring more teachers,” said a government school teacher.

He said the information was submitted to the district education office after compiling the data on the basis of student-teacher ratio of 40:1 for Classes VI to VIII, but they were again told to compile the information on the basis of student-teacher ratio of 45:1 for Classes VI to VIII.

Devinder Kumar, District Education Officer (DEO), Muktsar, said, “Following the instructions, we have provided all the information regarding rationalisation of teachers to the higher-ups. Now, they have to look into the matter.”

Asked whether it was in violation of the RTE Act, the DEO said, “As per the RTE Act, the student teacher-ratio should be 30:1. It further gives relaxation of 10 per cent in student-teacher ratio. Beyond this, I can’t make any comment.”

When the rationalisation of teachers was done about two years ago, it was done on the basis of student-teacher ratio of 35:1.

PK Aggarwal, Director General of School Education (DGSE), Punjab, said, “I am not aware about the student-teacher ratio fixed for rationalisation of teachers.” He parried the query saying that the orders in this regard were passed by the DPI (Secondary) and he would be able to give any reply.

However, repeated attempts to contact Balbir Singh, DPI (Secondary), proved futile.