1

Excess staff? Or less students?

Obviously, the problem of excess teachers can only be solved in one of two ways. Either the number of teachers should be reduced or the number of students should be increased through concerted efforts. Given the national goal of education for all, should the Indore Zila Sarkar be taking measures to reduce the number of teachers or to increase the number of students in its effort to rationalize the teacher-student ratio?

The only situation in which enrollment improvement efforts are not needed is when all existing schools are well attended and all children are attending schools. In Indore’s government schools, with poor and declining enrollment, this is hardly the case. There are several reasons for this (Box-1), notably sorry state of schools, poor quality of teaching, absence of schools at convenient distances, etc. Reducing teachers and merging schools will only exacerbate these problems – inadequate facilities in a given school will now have to meet the needs of more students after merger, poor quality of teaching will become poorer with fewer teachers, and children in areas where schools are closed will suffer.

The Indore Zila Sarkar has, for all practical purposes, initiated a measure that is bound to make the already pathetic enrollment situation even worse. Already, confusion created by this decision has encouraged parents to opt for private schools in the current academic year (Nav Bharat, July 1, 1999). And those who cannot afford these, such as slum children who were enrolled through a special voluntary drive, have no hope of joining a school this year.

This special drive, which succeeded in getting 102 slum children enrolled on the first day itself (media reports, July 2), proves that it is possible to improve enrollment in government schools. Moreover, the education department itself seems convinced of this. It has come up with a proposal for improving enrollment in government schools by creating pre-primary education facilities in them, which, incidentally, was also approved at the same meeting (Chautha Sansar, June 2, 1999). Given these recent initiatives, it is obvious that the Zila Sarkar could not possibly consider increasing school enrolment impractical. Could it be that, notwithstanding the national goal of education for all, it considers this unnecessary?

Box-1: Reasons for poor enrollment in government schools

Reasons for poor enrollment include the following: (Nav Bharat, May 17)

• Even children of government teachers don’t study in government schools and there is need to improve conditions of schools and standard of teaching.
• The announcement to close some and open some schools has created confusion. Meanwhile, since the academic year is starting, private schools are the only option.