More vocational teachers needed in upgraded schools: Teachers Federation

Vellore

The government a few days ago announced the upgrading of 40 high schools to higher secondary schools in various places in the state. Vellore district has one such upgraded school at Panamadangi, sources revealed.

The Federation state president SN Janardhanan told DT Next that government had appointed 10 teachers for each upgraded school, including nine PG teachers and one computer teacher for each school. “This is the first time that the government is appointing computer teachers for upgraded schools as the existing practice was only to appoint PG teachers,” he added.

But, the issue according to federation general secretary N Ravi was that “only students scoring more than 300 marks were accommodated in the Maths and biology streams while those scoring slightly less usually opted for subjects like commerce, accountancy, history, geography and economics or joined polytechnic colleges. However, those students who just managed to scrape through - usually the slow learners - could never dream of joining the above groups till now. But, they had the chance to learn a vocational trade specially in the electrical, electronic and mechanical engineering fields by which they could become self-reliant.”

Elaborating, Federation Treasurer V Cheraman said, “if vocational teachers are not appointed in the newly upgraded schools, then vocational subjects will not be taught and thus slow learners in such schools could drop out after SSLC adding to society’s burden of having to tackle them later.”

The Federation was hopeful that the vocational stream started by former CM MGR in 1975 and encouraged by J Jayalalithaa when she was CM by appointing a special committee to go into the nitty gritty of vocational education will be given a fillip by the present ruling dispensation too.