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Biman blames staff shortage for failed education plans
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LOCALCORRESPONDENT on 27 March, 2008 07:29:00
 
Left Front chairman, Biman Bose admitted that at a time when almost 2,000
primary schools in the state are running without a single teacher, he is
doubtful about fulfilment of their objective of bringing all children to school.
He was addressing a gathering at the pre-platinum jubilee celebration of All
Bengal Primary Teachers’ Association.
While speaking about the state government's objective to make primary education
available for all, the Left Front chairman rued, “At present the primary
schools are undergoing a major crisis with almost 45, 000 teacher posts in
nearly 2,000 schools are lying vacant. I do not understand how the academic year
will begin in these schools from 2 May in the absence of teachers. So many
questions remain unanswered as to who will carry out the admission process in
these schools. If this situation prevails, our main objective will be
hampered.”
He further held the Centre responsible for the current situation in the state's
primary schools and added while posts are lying vacant, the eligible students of
Primary Teachers’ Training Institutes are also not being able to fill up
the vacancies as their fate will be decided by the High Court. “The next
hearing for PTTI's have been scheduled on March 28 and it's quite obvious that
no final verdict will be given on that date. Thus, the situation will remain the
same for PTTI students,” he maintained.
Speaking on a similar note, Partha De, the state school education minister
said, “A lot of PTTI students’ future remain undecided and so the
schools are also suffering. We are fighting for the rights of these teachers. We
are unable to appoint regular teaching staff so for the time being the number of
part-time teachers might be augmented to meet the needs.”
He further said the phase between class I to II and class V to VI are the most
difficult and the weakest so the department has been planning to launch more
projects involving students.