Single-teacher tribal schools struggle due to inadequate staff

CHENNAI: Government tribal residential schools in the State along with a slew of concerns from school infrastructure to poor management is also facing difficulty in handling classes with single teachers.

Urging the tribal welfare department to employ adequate teachers, the members of Tamil Nadu Warden, Teachers Welfare and Protection of Rights Association had written a letter to the director recently.

There are about 320 government tribal residential schools in TN, and teachers and members of the association claim that about 20 per cent of schools have single teachers and is struggling to juggle between taking classes and performing non-teaching works.

Speaking to DT NEXT, a member of the association said, "The single-school teachers in tribal schools across the State are mounted with performing heavy tasks. The teachers have to teach students from 1 to 5 in the same class, while also performing non-teaching work."

The member said that Adi Dravidar Welfare schools and schools under the education department are allowed to appoint teachers through the School Management Committee (SMC). However, the same is not followed for tribal welfare schools.

"If tribal schools are too allowed to appoint teachers through SMC, we will be able to better address teachers' shortage in schools,” the member added.

Additionally, it was also pointed out that with the ratio of 1:30 (one teacher per 30 students), the department should employ teachers.

"As far as Salem district is concerned, 42 primary schools are functioning under the control of the tribal welfare department. And, more than 30 of them are one- teacher schools. A single teacher has to handle a total of 23 subjects for all five classes, "added a tribal welfare teacher and member of the association.

Besides this, the members pointed out that there is a lack of accommodation facilities for elementary school teachers.

"The high and higher secondary tribal welfare schools that were recently upgraded have a lack of accommodation for elementary school students. This also creates difficulty in providing them breakfast under the scheme,” said an association member.