Kolkata: A single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court on Friday questioned the “irrational” distribution of postings of teachers in different state-run schools in West Bengal where schools with adequate number of students have an inadequate number of teachers while those with fewer students have too many teachers.
During the course of hearing on a matter relating to teachers’ transfers, it came to the notice of Justice Biswajit Basu of Calcutta High court that a school in Kolkata- adjacent Howrah district having a total student strength of 13 has five teachers.
This is in sharp contrast to another school in the same district, where only eight teachers are catering to a total student strength of 550. This school is running without any proper teacher for crucial subjects like mathematics and geography.
Expressing regret over this irrational teacher to student ratio in schools, Justice Basu also questioned the requirement of running schools with such few numbers of students. He also questioned whether it is not better to withdraw the recognition of such schools and transfer the teachers posted there to schools without adequate teaching staff.
The counsel for the state education department said that there can be problems if such a step is taken since there can be political pressures in the matter.
“Forget about the political pressures. There is an urgent requirement of improving the academic grades of the schools. Why can’t we think of model schools? There are girls’ schools in the state which neither have adequate teachers nor security staff and not even proper toilets. How can one remain silent in such a situation?” Justice Basu questioned them.
Advising the state education system to introduce a proper and transparent transfer policy, Justice Basu said that teachers who refuse to abide by the transfer policy should be denied their salary from the next month.
“We will have to first think of the interest of the students. I know that changing the process is time consuming. But we will have to achieve it,” Justice Basu observed.
