Hit by teacher crunch,KCB schools slam door on students

School education committee Chairperson Sangeeta Gawli said the schools were facing shortage of teachers due to which they can’t increase the intake of students. “At the Col Bhagat English medium school,we have kept the strength of students restricted in view of the shortage of teachers. We require more teachers since we have introduced primary classes from this year,” she said.

In the meeting on Monday,the board members will also discuss the policy of employment of teachers. The board has been meeting the shortage by employing teachers on contractual basis. The contract of some of the teachers was not renewed which further aggravated the problem. Gawli said the services of some of the teachers were discontinued and now the board will work out the policy on employment.

KCB member Sunil Jadhav said the members will press the board to employ teachers on permanent basis to meet the shortage. “The cantonment board should employ teachers on permanent basis by taking the permission of Southern Command. It will get more talented candidates for the job through permanent recruitment,” he said.

Cantonment member Kamlesh Chaskar said the strength of teachers in his ward was not in proportion with the students. “There are three schools in my ward—Lal Bahadur High School,Col Bhagat English School and Zakir Hussain Urdu School. In order to improve the efficiency of these schools,I have asked the cantonment board to provide the adequate number of teachers.”

Jadhav said though majority of the children studying in the cantonment schools were from poor background,it was,however,mandatory for the cantonment board to provide education at par with the private schools.

“Earlier,many students have left to join the private-run English medium schools. Though we have introduced English in some of the schools,it is also important that we provide better teaching staff.’