Don’t transfer surplus teachers in red zones: Teachers body

With uncertainty around the re-opening of schools post lockdown and anticipating poor attendance of students, teachers from the state have now requested the education

With uncertainty around the re-opening of schools post lockdown and anticipating poor attendance of students, teachers from the state have now requested the education department to not declare additional teachers as surplus in schools across 14 red zones in the state.

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“This year aided schools in the state have not been able to conduct their admissions due to the Covid-19 outbreak, and schools had to close before the academic year formally ended. With this and the resultant migration, many schools might see poor enrolments even after they start operations post-lockdown. If teachers are considered “surplus” based on this, it would be unfair. We have asked the government to stay the system for the academic year 2020-21,” said Anil Bornare, coordinator for BJP teachers cell.

While several deputy directorates in the state have also written to the education department requesting that teachers in red zones be exempted from the rule for a year, an official from the department said that an official decision was yet to be taken.

As per the norms of the department, if a school has more teachers than the student-teacher ratio of 30:1 per class, appointments of such surplus teachers are cancelled and they are transferred to other schools with vacancies.

The department is currently providing online learning material to students and is meanwhile coming up with possible plans for reopening after the lockdown is lifted. It is likely that each region would have different reopening schedules depending on the situation at the local level.