Female TET teachers posting creates chaos in primary education
SILCHAR, August 4: The State Government of Assam might boast of fair and transparent appointment and posting of TET teachers before their confirmation. But, the way the process for posting them in the post confirmation period through lottery has put the female teachers in particular in total disarray. In flagrant violation of the declared policy of posting within a radius of 5 to 8 km within their homes, they have been put in schools 60 to 70 km away.
This has posed serious problem for the female teachers who have to reach their places of posting with great hardship. Some of them expressed their enormous difficulties without identifying themselves with their original names.
Take the case of Sunita Roy who after appointment was posted in a school at the first instance well within reach of her home. After confirmation, she was put in a school, 65 km away. She has to first take an auto–rickshaw from her residence, then board a bus and then again take to an auto–rickshaw to be at school. Her mother had to accompany her but could not sustain the strains of the long journey. She could not take up residence in the village just on the border with Bangladesh for her own safety and security.
Deepshikha Chakraborty, another girl from the town, has to board a bus and after 40 km of journey ferry across the flooded Barak river to reach her school that too after walking for a distance of 2 km. Tired and exhausted, how could one expect to do justice to teaching. The daughter of a professor of a technical school, Geetanjali Paul, was posted at a school located in the remote and inaccessible tea belt, 35 km away. The road full of craters and potholes that she has to travel by bus has told heavily on her health to fall sick and is waiting for recovery to take a decision.
On hearing that her daughter, Aparajita Singha, has been put in a school that she has to reach by travelling through a jungle–infested road between this town and Hailakandi, her widow mother has no option than to advise her to resign. Such unfortunate victims of whimsical and arbitrary postings are many. Local media brings out reports regularly of how primary education in government schools across Barak Valley has fallen in doldrums. Teachers in their predicament with no tangible solution in sight are going for questionable adjustment with school authorities. Complaints are galore of hiring teachers to fill in the vacuum. Many teachers have refused to join. There is total chaos and anarchy. Children are the worst victims, making a mockery of the right to education (RTE). Who will address these issues and resolve?
Source: The Sentinel 05.08.2013
