Jamshedpur, April 12: As many as 400 people, including 150 girls and boys of a government school some 40km away, held a procession and forced the East Singhbhum district education office in the steel city to appoint four more teachers for their upgraded high school which will send its first batch of matriculate examinees in 2017 but has been running with only two mentors.
After the hour-long protest - by residents of Chaura village, Mahulbani panchayat in Patamda block, who included farmer parents, rural schoolchildren and members of the upgraded high school's managing committee - district superintendent of education (DSE) Indrabhushan Singh and district education officer Mukesh Kumar Sinha deputed four teachers immediately.
They will join the Chaura school tomorrow.
Though Sinha said they had deputed teachers "four days ago" and "maybe protesters agitated because they didn't know about the development", the appointments of teachers were notified today.
One of the most progressive blocks in East Singhbhum, district education officials admit Patamda's school enrolment and attendance percentages are "very high" even at a time when Jharkhand has to roll out School Chale, Chalayein Abhiyan to bring children into the fold of formal education.
But, too few teachers in Patamda act as a damper to the enthusiasm of parents and students. The block has 135 state-run, including 10 high schools, but ask about the teacher-student ratio, and one is greeted with silence. "In a few high schools, there is perhaps 40 per cent of the sanctioned vacancies, in others, the percentage is zero," said a clerk at the education office who did not want to be named.
Asked why they embarked on the protest, Chaura villager Yudhisthir Mahto, who is the president of the school managing committee, said: "The school was upgraded from middle to high in 2015, so now we have students in Classes IX and X, but with two primary school teachers for all 387 children on its rolls from Classes I to X. We've approached Jamshedpur MP Bidyut Baran Mahto and Jugsalai MLA Ramchandra Sahis (Patamda falls under the jurisdiction of both) but in vain. But, when it is a question of our children's careers, we were compelled to hit the streets in protest."
Another villager Bhajahari Mahto, also a member of the school managing committee, said it was another matter to upgrade a middle school by introducing Classes IX and X, another to appoint quality teachers so that students learn something.
So it is no surprise that parents have taken umbrage to the fact that their wards admitted to the Chaura upgraded high school play, eat midday meals and while away their time as the two primary teachers, Govardhan Mahto and Santosh Singh, allegedly don't or can't teach.
"We play and have meals because teachers don't teach," Nitish Kumar Mahto, a Class VIII student of the Chaura school who joined today's protest, told The Telegraph .
"We play through the day and go home. Nobody teaches us. We appear in our exams without being guided by anyone. Some children take private tuitions. Somehow we get promoted. But now, it is Class IX and we are aware that board exams are near, so we want teachers to teach us," said Sushen Mahto, another student.
