GUJARAT'S BLANK BLACKBOARDS

Government and government-aided schools in Gujarat suffer from an acute lack of teachers. Students, especially those in remote, rural areas, are the worst sufferers

- JUMANA SHAH

For two years, A.A. Giri, the only teacher and principal of the Bapunagar Municipal Hindi Medium Middle School in the Rakhial area of Ahmedabad, had faced, and struggled against, an onerous task: teaching Algebra, Social Science, Biology, Chemistry and even Gujarati to 116 students of classes 9 and 10. After repeated requests, the school was allotted two visiting teaching assistants, appointed on contract by the state government. The three teachers are helping students prepare for the Gujarat Board Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations due to be held early next year. The visiting teachers are paid on per class taken basis, with a maximum of Rs 16,500 a month, substantially lower than the Rs 50,000-Rs 75,000 salary of a full-time senior teacher.

It's a plight 14 other institutions in the city are facing-forced to make do with woefully inadequate teaching staff. The situation is by no means restricted to the state capital, it is reflected all across Gujarat. Data presented in the state assembly in March 2023 shows 32,674 teaching posts lay vacant statewide as of December 2022. These vacancies comprise around 15 per cent of the total number of approved posts of teachers in government and government-aided schools. In all, 29,122 were for teachers and 3,522 for principals. Of these, 11,996 are unfilled in grant-in-aid/ government-aided schools, while 20,678 positions are yet to be filled in government-run schools. The situation in government and grant-in-aid primary schools is the direst-17,500 teaching posts are lying vacant in over 40,000 schools.