CHENNAI: Nearly a year after the state government announced to bring schools under various departments, including Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare (AD&TW) Department, under the umbrella of the school education department, progress has been at a snail’s pace as deciding seniority of teachers is a major stumbling block.
“The discussion on the merger is still in the preliminary stage. The announcement includes government schools under various departments as well as government-aided schools under the HR and CE departments. The procedures for taking over government and government-aided schools are different. We are still discussing how to go about it as deciding the seniority of teachers is also a major problem,” said a senior official from the school education department.
A state functionary of the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Teacher Warden Association said similar attempts were made earlier, but were not fruitful as teachers and officials in the school education department were against it owing to fear of losing seniority. “With many of these schools in interior areas where the population of SC/ST people is high, there are also chances of gradual shutting down of these schools citing low strength,” the functionary added.
Nearly one lakh students are studying in the 1,138 Adi Dravidar Welfare (ADW) schools and 320 government tribal residential schools across Tamil Nadu. Within a month after the merger was announced, the ADW director in a circular had asked the officials to prepare the list of headmasters, special teachers, secondary grade, graduate, and postgraduate teachers working in the schools under the department.
“Even though the merger will bring a lot of benefits for teachers working under the department as they can get promotions faster and get transfers to nearby schools, we are against the move as we are worried about the impact it will have on the students. These schools started to give special attention to the SC/ST students and many teachers from other communities refused to work with them. While these schools being monitored by revenue officials is a problem that needs to be addressed, we urge the government to create posts of educational officers at the block, educational district, and revenue district levels,” said the functionary of the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Teacher Warden Association.
The circular had also asked for the details of movable and immovable properties held by these schools. Following this, teachers working under the department protested, demanding the government to give up the merger. As many of the schools are constructed on land belonging to AD&TW department and buildings were constructed with its funds, they raised apprehensions about transfer of assets.
Senior officials in the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare department have indicated that the assets of these departments will not be transferred, and discussions are under way to bring the academic aspects of these schools into the purview of the school education department.
VCK MP D Ravikumar said that his party wanted all schools to come under the school education department to ensure that there are no caste names in educational institutions. “Our demand is to ensure that there are no caste names used for schools and they are not overseen by the revenue officials. We still stand by that view,” he said.