The report on compliance of Right to Education (RTE) provisions by schools in Jharkhand tells a sordid tale of willful neglect on the part of government which has failed consistently in providing adequate number of teachers for schools of the State.
A study conducted by CRY (Child Rights and You) to ascertain compliance of the provisions of RTE, as passed in 2002 and amended in 2009, exposed the lackluster performance of the state on key indicators like number of teachers and dependence on contract teachers for running the show in Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV).
“Government’s effort to implement RTE provisions is limited to paper only. They pass orders and do nothing,” said Ram Murty Thakur, Secretary Jharkhand Primary Teachers Association. The study highlights that in Jharkhand- around 50000 posts of teachers from primary to +2 schools are vacant, as many as 1200
Upgraded Schools are without teachers, KGBV and model schools are dependent on contract teachers, out of 44000 primary schools 28500 may have shortage of teachers, out of 12000 upper primary 7800 schools may have shortage of teachers.
Interestingly, government has a pool of successful TET (Teachers Eligibility Test) candidates to meet the requirement of teachers for schools. “We have come to know that the government is planning to recruit as many as 28,000 teachers from TET,” added Murty.
Notably, against a total of 79,000 sanctioned posts in the State, the government can boast of only 41,000 teachers. Even the current figure for sanctioned post is said to be less than what has been mandated under RTE. “As per the provisions of RTE, government should have increased the sanctioned number of post to 1 lakh but our efforts to draw attention towards this fall on deaf ear,” said Murty.
Schools operating under Education Guarantee Scheme and KGVB work without any government teacher as there is no provision for appointment of government teachers in these schools. “The tenure of contract teachers of KGBV rarely ends as it is not bound by any time and is the sole prerogative of the government to terminate the contract,” said Murty.
Incidentally, the study –titled ‘learning Blocks’ - was conducted across 71 districts in 13 states to track gaps in the implementation of the provisions laid out in the RTE Act.