Teachers who have been working in schools located in inaccessible or most inaccessible areas for 15 years or more are unsure about whether they would be transferred to schools located in accessible areas after implementation of rectified Uttarakhand teachers' transfer policy-2011 in the state.
According to them, teachers have not been transferred based on government guidelines for many years, but those with political or bureaucratic links were being transferred to schools located at convenient locations.
However, Uttarakhand Education minister Mantri Prasad Naithani appealed to the teachers to concentrate on teaching in stead of focusing on transfer policy. Transparency will be maintained in the process of transfers, the minister reiterated.
Talking to The Pioneer, Seema Mamgain, teacher of Government High School, Dofar, Bageshwar, said that she has been teaching in this school for 15 years. As of now, only four out of eight teachers have been deployed in the school. Due to shortage of teachers, she has to conduct classes of other subjects. She was unsure about her transfer to another school in spite of working in inaccessible areas for 15 years.
An English teacher said that due to shortage of teachers, she conducts science classes. According to her, classes like drawing and painting, NSS and NCC activities were adversely affected in schools due to the shortage of trained teachers. Another teacher said that government schools have been receiving funds for establishing and enhancing science lab under Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan from the central government. Due to the shortage of science teachers in some schools, the social science teacher was assigned to teach science. A question arises whether the teacher of social science would be able to teach practical science to students effectively without proper training.
According to him, the education department's report on deployment of teachers reveals the lack of 50 per cent of total staff in schools located in inaccessible or most inaccessible areas, whereas almost 100 per cent of teaching staff is deployed in schools located in most accessible or accessible areas.
Critics state that in spite of the last year being declared zero year for teachers' transfer, some teachers have been transferred to other schools.