BENGALURU: With teachers employed at government schools in Bengaluru – and the rest of Karnataka – still embroiled in Special Intensive Revision (SIR) duty even after the August 17 deadline, the students at the schools are currently facing the consequences of a severe staff crunch. For about two months now, due to the aforementioned SIR duty, teachers have been forced to teach beyond their allotted subjects with even headmasters having to to pitch in occasionally, worsening what is already a concerning median student to teacher ratio at the state’s government schools.
“For the SIR exercise the BLOs, involving school teachers and anganwadi teachers, the process was started from March. The work of the BLOs would have been completed within one month, but due to two extensions in this exercise, they were extensively roped in till August 17. The active role of the BLOs will continue till October 22, till the final stage of claims and objections ends. Not all of them are teachers, however,” said an Election Commission of India (ECI) official.
Merina Flora, a schoolteacher, is busy with SIR duty at the time of writing. “There is a lot of pressure on us, but we have to complete our duty. The school has employed some guest teachers, since about half of the teachers, including me, are out conducting the SIR,” she said.
Nagarathna P, who teaches Kannada at a government school, was formerly a booth level officer (BLO). “The workload has increased incredibly. I am, at all times, surrounded by students. It is a very difficult situation,” she said.
It is to be noted that a significant number of teachers that TNIE spoke to, especially those who were on SIR duty, maintained a conspicuous tight-lippedness not only about about their concerns and situations, but also those of the colleagues they had left behind, who were carrying the former’s workloads.
SIR duty: Headmasters forced to take classes
Suresh K, the headmaster at a government school on Sarjapur Main Road, told TNIE that the only reason his school was functioning without major hiccups was the fact that two non-profit organisations were working with the school, and had deployed 25-27 teachers to teach its students. “Our core employee base is just seven teachers, five of whom have been deputed for the SIR exercise. Without the [aforementioned] intervention, we would be in big trouble,” he said, adding that he was expecting the five teachers to report back to the school for regular teaching duties the next day (today, August 20).
Other schools in the vicinity, according to Suresh, are not so lucky. “I personally know of schools who are severely struggling. Their headmasters or principals have been forced to teach a lot of classes. For some, the burden is eased a bit by qualified members of student associations, who have deputed degree holders to teach at these schools on a voluntary basis,” he said.
One of the core problems, as aforementioned, is the fact that an obvious consequence of staff shortage is the dilution of duties: teachers being forced to teach subjects in which they potentially have little to no experience. For educationist Prof. Sabiha Bhoomigowda, who notes that the “teacher scarcity at government schools is even ordinarily very high”, it is self-evident that students from marginalised communities are almost exclusively the victims of the situation, whose fundamental right to good education is being impinged. “The loss in education of these months is significant and irreparable. Students’ learning at government schools is already compromised due to a host of external factors; many of them do not have the capacity to learn lessons themselves, and they will face the brunt the hardest,” she said.
Officials from the Department of School Education & Literacy could not be reached for a comment.