Withdraw approval of schools without students: HC

Kolkata: Justice Biswajit Basu on Friday observed that the state Education department should withdraw approval of schools with no students and instead send teachers where there are children. Justice Basu made this observation during the hearing of a case related to transfer of school teachers.

An example of a school in Howrah was given where there are five teachers for only 13 students while another school — Rashpur Girls’ High School in the same district — has only eight teachers for 550 students. There is a shortage of teachers in a few subjects, including history and mathematics in the latter.

A history teacher at the high school has approached the Calcutta High Court seeking transfer to another nearby school. The court had summoned a report from the school’s headmistress about its running condition. According to this, the total number of students in the school is 585. There should be at least 15 teachers but it has only eight currently along with seven vacancies.

The court observed that if the history teacher is to be transferred, then the school will no longer have a teacher in the specific subject. The judge also stated that recently four teachers from this school have already been transferred to another institution.

During the case hearing, Justice Basu sternly asked the teachers to follow the new rule of transfer properly and stated that if rules are not followed, he will stop the salaries from next month. Justice Basu also directed deployment of a civic volunteer at the Rashpur Girls’ High School. To maintain the student-teacher ratio in recognised non-government aided and sponsored secondary schools in the state, the state Education department has made several changes in the transfer policy. As per the new notification, no one can apply for a transfer from those schools that have fewer number of teachers than what is required. The department on February 10 had published these guidelines under “Policy for rationalisation of teachers working in recognised non-Government aided/sponsored secondary schools in the state.” Earlier, the Calcutta High Court had ordered that the state Education department can transfer teachers to any school in the state keeping in mind the best interest of students. Under this policy, they have decided that there will be a reallocation of teachers in the state, i.e. teachers from schools with a surplus will have to serve in schools with fewer strength in the district.