Thousands of Shikshakarmi lecturers and teachers posts are vacant in Bastar district resulting to teaching work in English and science subjects is undertaken in several schools without subject teachers.
Reason behind this pathetic State of schools education is assigned to the teachers craving to stay safe in urban centres than going to rural areas and face Maoist persecution.
This is clearly visible as even after promotion, teachers are staying in urban centres after obtaining stay against their transfer orders. This has upset the equation of teaching in rural school where one can see a Hindi teacher teaching subjects like Geography and
science. In rural areas this is a common phenomena and a normal practice.
According to data received from district Panchayat, even after promotion and direct appointment of teachers, three thousand of teachers’ posts are vacant in the district. These also include hundreds of posts of Shikshakarmi Grade I. These teachers are appointed in higher secondary schools and at present 774 posts of Shikshakarmi Grade I are vacant as the department could appoint 77 teachers out of 859 sanctioned for
the district. Out of these appointments science subjects had only negligible share – Maths two, Physics 3 and Chemistry just one.
Another reason assigned to the shortage of senior level teachers is that Tribal Development Department did not give promotion to Upper Division Teachers in the department run schools and Ashramas from 2009 onward leading to hundreds of lecturers posts remained vacant that too of subjects like Maths, English, Science etc.
District education officer D Somaiyya says, in primary and middle schools the situation is not so bad but except few appointments in Higher Secondary schools, teachers are not available, specially in rural areas. The department is actively considering for attaching the teachers of compulsory subjects, he added.