With nearly 10 per cent of its schools having a teacher-student ratio as high as 1:60 against the ratio of 1:30 stipulated by the Right To Education Act, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), which administers nearly 1,100 Kendriya Vidyalayas across the country and abroad, has directed such schools to increase infrastructure for creation of additional batches.
“As an immediate measure to address the skewed teacher-student ratio in some schools, we have decided to recruit more teachers. Schools have also been asked to increase the infrastructure so that additional batches can be created so as to meet the teacher-student ratio prescribed under the Right to Education Act,’’ KVS Commissioner Avinash Dikshit told ‘Express’ in an interview Dikshit is in the capital city to participate in programmes being organised in connection with the golden jubilee celebrations of the KVS.
“If one sees the Kendriya Vidyalayas as a whole, the teacher-student ratio is 1:27. But anomalies in the ratio do exist in some Kendriya Vidyalayas located in cities where there is a huge demand for seats,’’ he said. The reason for increased number of students in certain KV schools is primarily due to the norm that students who seek transfer from one KV to another have to be accommodated irrespective of the batch strength. ‘’We have noticed a trend where students take admission to a Kendriya Vidyalaya in the suburbs and then seek transfer to one located in the city,’’ Dikshit said.
Members of Parliament also have a quota for admission to Kendriya Vidyalayas, most of which is used in schools located in big cities. This further skews the teacher-student ratio, he said. The e-classroom project in Kendriya Vidyalayas launched in 2011 has now been implemented in 125 schools with at least 10 classrooms in each school coming under the project, Dikshit said adding that financial assistance would be given to other schools to implement the project on their own. In response to widespread complaints from teachers over the recent increase in working hours, Dikshit said this has been done to meet the RTE Act’s requirement of at least 45 working hours per week.
‘’The actual class hours have been left untouched. The remaining hours are envisaged to be utilised by teachers for preparation,’’ he said. Denying complaints of ‘’arbitrary’’ transfer of teachers, Dikshit said Kendriya Vidyalaya teachers are transferred either to accommodate teachers who have completed the minimum tenure in ‘’hard’’ and ‘’very hard’’ stations like the North East or to render the mandatory service in such stations before completion of 40 years of age.
‘’There is no policy of routine transfer and the process is done through a transparent point-based system,’’ Dikshit clarified.