the goan I network
PANAJI
Thousands of Goa’s young adults who chose to enter the noble teaching profession are faced with a grim reality -- there are too few jobs, if any, and the numbers of aspiring teachers are growing steadily every year.
Up to February last, some 3,400-odd trained teachers, mostly holding Bachelor (BEd and BPEd) degrees besides some diploma (DEd) holders, have been languishing on the live registers of the State Employment Exchange.
And yet, institutions offering teacher training courses continue to see young Goans lining up for admissions. Around 300 trained teachers add up to the already overfull pool of teaching job-seekers, each year.
Officials in the Education ministry’s hierarchy, meanwhile, appear clueless on how to tackle this dichotomy.
Although the education department is said to be moving a file to recruit some 122 primary teachers soon, it will only be a lilliputian step and is unlikely to ameliorate the job scenario in the school education sector by any noticeable measure.
It is not as if there is no potential to create jobs in the field.
Some 200 government teachers, including those from aided schools, retire each year but the vacancies that arise aren’t filled.
But bureaucrats manning the education department lack the will to turnaround the school education system. They juggle the falling student enrollments in government schools and cite student-teacher ratio norms to duck the need of recruiting fresh teachers.
The scenario is even more precarious in the private sector, where most schools only offer contract jobs or temporary employment of a few months to fill leave
vacancies.
“But as long as there is a demand for BEd degrees and students line up to secure admissions, we are compelled to offer the BEd degree courses and train teachers,” an official said.
Dr Sanjay Desai, who is vice principal at the autonomous Chowgule College in Margao, is of the opinion that the education department needs to pull up its socks and change the face of primary
education.
“Presently, the student-teacher ratio for Class I to Class IV must be tweaked with no compromise on the one-teacher-per-class norm. How will students learn and develop if a single teacher handles four classes?,” Dr Dessai asked.
He said, the primary education sector must be shaken up to ensure students passing out are fit enough to meet the challenges of the fast evolving secondary and higher education.
Dr Desai said Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who holds the portfolio should ensure that as many teachers as possible are recruited and the misinterpretation of the student-teacher ratio ends.
Meanwhile, educationists attached to a top teacher training institute in Panaji admit that authorities are aware the job market for teachers is not all hunky-dory.
The ball is clearly in the court of the State government if it is to ensure Goa’s faculty improves both qualitatively and quantitatively, lest the students are not worse off in schools than they
currently are.
