MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday sought response from the state government on a PIL filed alleging non-adherence to student-teacher ratio in schools falling under the control of Adi Dravidar Welfare department in Tamil Nadu.
The members of the Teacher Warden Federation of the department stated in their petition that 98 higher secondary schools, 108 high schools and 99 middle schools are functioning under the above department in the state.
The School Education Department passed an order on August 5, 2025, that if the number of students in Classes VI to X is 150 or below, there must be six BT assistants (bachelor teacher assistant or graduate teacher).
The student-teacher ratio should be 1:30 in respect of primary school, 1:35 in respect of middle school, and 1:40 in respect of classes IX and X, it added.
Though the above order is being strictly implemented in all other schools, the director of the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department has issued an order on June 30 fixing the number of BT assistants in each school under it as five, irrespective of the number of students in the schools, the federation alleged. There are 40 periods per day in total for Classes VI to X. Since there are only five teachers, they have to handle all 40 periods without any free time, it added.
The members further claimed that a majority of the schools are functioning without ministerial staff or non-teaching staff and the teachers are forced to shoulder their work too. They requested the court to quash the director's order and appoint BT assistants as per the ratio fixed by the school education department.
When the case was heard on Tuesday, the additional advocate general B Saravanan informed that temporary appointments are being made right now and regular appointments would begin soon.
Noting this, a bench of Justices CV Karthikeyan and R Sakthivel directed the authorities to file a written response at the next hearing on October 12.