Resentment is brewing among teachers and their organisations on what they claimed faulty process of categorisation of the schools into accessible and inaccessible. The category of schools is an important criterion which decides the contentious issue of transfer of teachers in Education department of the State. In a recent meeting held at the office of Garhwal Commissioner the representatives of teacher organisations refused to endorse the list containing the new categorisation of schools under Garhwal division. The schools are classified into Accessible area and Inaccessible area categories on the basis of factors like their location, distance from hospital, distance from road head, distance from the cities, distance from railway stations etc.
Based on these factors the schools are divided into A, B, C, D, E and F categories. The A, B and C categories are grouped in X type and includes schools with better facilities and are usually termed as Accessible area, schools while D E and F categories are grouped in Y type (Inaccessible area schools). The president of Garhwal division of Rajkeeya Shikshak Sangh (RSS), Ram Singh Chauhan told The Pioneer that the categorisation done at the districts was marred with serious discrepancies.
He informed that representatives of teachers were invited in the meetings held to categorise the schools but they were not provided the required guidelines due to which department officials did what they intended. Chauhan said the department has added the criterion of distance from railway station to categorise the schools which is not practical in a State like Uttarakhand. Giving an example of faulty process, he claimed that most of the schools located in Chakrata and Kalsi blocks of Dehradun district were put in X category school.
Teachers posted in the mountainous areas of the State are also not happy with the categorisation process. Senior lecturer of GIC, Pipalkoti in Chamoli district, K K Dimri informed that the policy envisages a cut off date of year 2014, for implementing factor of teachers stay in schools of mountainous areas due to which those serving in such schools for long stand to lose.
He said the factors like hospitals and distance from road heads were same for places like Dehradun and those located in mountainous areas. Secondary Education director RK Kunwar said that the objections into the categorisation of schools would be looking into and corrected. He said the process of transfers would be completed before the end of summer vacations.