Despite high student intake, shortage of teachers at district meritorious school

Neha Saini

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Amritsar, December 7

Meritorious schools were opened by the Punjab Government in 2014 with the aim to give free education to the needy deserving students. A pilot project under the then SAD-BJP government, a decade later these schools are still struggling to get teachers and infrastructure facelift.

Government Senior Secondary Residential School for Meritorious Students, Amritsar, one of the 10 meritorious schools in the state, faces teacher shortage and infrastructure upgrade, despite the school’s excellent academic performance for the past nine years. Out of designated 55 teaching posts, the school has only 40 faculty members, including non-teaching staff. With a strength of 500 students from classes IX to XII, the school has only one physics teacher for 10 sections of medical and non-medical classes. Moreover, the post of principal of the school has been temporarily filled by giving additional charge to Savjeet Kaur, who is also serving as school head for two senior secondary schools, one in Attari and another in Khasa. Most of the school’s DPE faculty are also performing additional duties as hostel warden. Additionally, the school has not received any funds for maintenance or repair for last seven years.

“The prime reason for the staff shortage in meritorious schools has been the non-regularisation of the faculty at these schools. The teachers, who were initially appointed in meritorious schools, after clearing all requisites for qualifications and interview, are still working on contractual basis, with no increments or allowance entitlement,” shared Sukhjeet Singh, DPE faculty at the school. Teaching and non-teaching staff of the schools for meritorious students have been demanding regularisation of jobs under the state Education Department and have expressed their willingness to accept the same offer regarding regularisation that was offered to SSA/RMSA teachers. Later, in 2018, then education minister OP Soni had announced that the teachers would be regularised. “It been almost 10 years now, nothing has been done in this regard. We have met multiple ministers, made representations to several MLAs, MPs and even held protests. On December 5, we had also met Education Minister Harjot Bains, who promised to do something in this regard,” shared Sukhjeet, who has been teaching in the school since 2014.

Eight students in merit list

Savjeet Kaur, principal-in-charge at the school, shared that the meritorious school in district has been producing meritorious students every year. “Last year, eight of our students had been in the state merit list, from different grades and our cut off percentage last year during admissions was around 95 per cent. We are providing residential education programme and sports programmes to the students. The fact that the school has not received any funds in last seven years for repair and maintenance of building and toilets, speaks about the priority of the state government,” she said.

Calling out the current state government for ignoring meritorious schools, Savjeet said that if only a percentage of development funds under G20 or from state exchequer were directed towards meritorious schools, a lot could be achieved. “AAP government wants to develop Schools of Eminence, which are primarily based on the same concept as meritorious schools were constituted. To shortlist meritorious students from senior classes and provide them with highest standard of education. This has already been going on in meritorious schools for last nine years. Sadly, without funds and regular teaching faculty, these schools have been side lined completely,” she said.

High student intake among SoEs

Despite the state governments’ push to popularise SoEs as best-run schools, the student intake in meritorious schools is very high as they offer residential education programme. Well-equipped labs, library and qualified faculty and facilitating preparations of competitive exams like NEET, JEE are some of the factors that have managed to attract students to these schools.