Shortage of teachers plagues North Sikkim schools

PUBLIC AND PANCHAYAT BLAME INDISCRIMINATE TRANSFERS FOR PRESENT PREDICAMENT
MANGAN, 12 April: Several schools in North District are facing acute shortage of teachers which is affecting the timely coverage of the school syllabus. The Secondary and JHS schools which are located in remote areas are struggling to provide quality education. The public and panchayat from different GPUs expressed their dissatisfaction with the HRDD for not being able to provide teaching staff as per the requirement. Some schools have still not been able to start the syllabus in some subjects owing to the shortage of teaching staff.
The problem, people here contend, stems from teachers opting for transfers to urban areas to suit their convenience. The SMC, public and the panchayats express that the Department should at least check the status and teacher strength at the school and consult the SMC before granting such transfers. They further expressed that there should be some provision of replacing the outgoing teacher with a substitute before the transfer orders are issued. As of now the SMC or panchayats have no say in all of this as the transfers are issued by the head office, they added.
“The teachers who come from outside North District do not want to render their services in the village and always opt for transfer in some urban area as per their convenience,” rued one panchayat member while speaking to NOW! The department should give preference to candidates from these areas itself while appointing teachers, expressed some SMC and Panchayats.
This correspondent having met with different panchayats, SMC, Zilla and heads of the schools collected the data for the shortage of teachers. Most of the schools like Tingvong SS, Namprik JHS, Lachen SS, Gor SS, Gnon-Sangdong SS, Mangshilla SS, Ralak JHS do not have enough Math teachers. Mangshila School has large number of students in some of the classes and need to be rearranged into different sections but this is not possible due to lack of teaching staff.
Tingvong SS requires one Math and one Arts teacher, Lachen SS requires Math, Nepali and Hindi teachers, Namprik JHS needs Math and Science teachers, Ralak JHS needs Math and Arts teachers, Mangshila SS need Math, Computer and PET while Sangdong SS and Hee-Gyathang SSS requires an Arts teacher each.
The Gor Secondary School still has only one teacher in the Secondary level when the school actually requires at least seven.