Teachers demand withdrawal of GO 117

Vijayawada : Strongly protesting against the issuance of government order(GO) number 117, the teachers of Federation of Andhra Pradesh Teachers Organisations (FAPTO) staged dharna at Dharna Chowk here on Thursday and demanded the government to withdraw the GO which would destroy the prevailing educational system in the state.

The teachers addressing the gathering said that the GO was irrational and unscientific which would result in weakening of the primary schools across the state.

The GO, among others, stipulates that posts of headmasters and physical education teachers will be abolished if there is no adequate student strength in the schools. The teachers will have to take up to 48 classes in a week. There will be no Telugu medium till Class VIII. Teachers' unions in across the state have been strongly opposing the order.

The teachers expressed fear that thousands of primary schools would become single teacher schools. Likewise, there would be tremendous pressure on the school assistant teachers of Hindi and Physics to take 55 classes in a week. Moreover, the school assistants would not get chance to teach students in the upper primary schools. It would not be possible to implement the assurance that the secondary grade teachers would be promoted, they said.

The teachers put forward several demands including withdrawal of the controversial GO, merger of III,IV and V classes, continuation of Telugu and English mediums as per the Supreme Court directions, continuation of school assistants in upper primary schools, limitation to the work load of teachers to 22 classes, not to merger minority medium schools with other medium schools and reduction of student teacher ratio to 1:10 in the Tribal regions. Referring to the foundation schools, they also demanded appointment of one teacher for each classroom in order to strengthen the primary education and if the strength of students crosses 21, second teacher should be appointed.

In the foundation plus schools, if the strength of the students crosses 21, second teacher and if it crosses 41, third teacher should be appointed. If the strength crosses 80, a primary school headmaster should be appointed, they demanded.

Every high school should have a headmaster and physical education teachers (PETs)and if the strength of high school crosses 40, PET should be appointed. Since the Right to Education Act stipulates 1:40 ratio for teacher and students, if the roll crosses 50, second section, if it crosses 90, third section and if it crosses 130 fourth section should be formed. In the junior colleges, eligible school assistants should be promoted as junior lecturers and Grade-2 headmasters should be promoted as principals, they demanded.