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Glut of teachers in Kerala but not for this school

Even as thousands of teachers in Kerala are drawing salary without doing any job, students of a high school had to resort to an indefinite hunger strike to get adequate teachers posted in the school.
Two students of Mamalakandam Government High School in Ernakulam district began the strike outside the Kothamangalam District Education Office from Tuesday after the government failed to fulfil the assurances given to them by the authorities.
Bowing to the students, the state cabinet on Wednesday decided to appoint the required teachers. However, the students refused to end their strike without getting a written assurance. They called off the strike in the evening only after receiving the government order.
School leader Yadhu Krishnan, who led the strike, said the high school classes were not conducted since the commencement of the academic year five months ago due to shortage of teachers.
The problem started after the the institution was upgraded to high school last year.
Though two teachers were appointed then, they left the school after the inauguration. The parents had tried to solve the problem by appointing temporary teachers by pooling money. However, the teachers left after the parents failed to ensure timely payment of salaries to them. The shortage of teachers in the school is despite an overall glut in teachers faced by the state government. The state at present has over 3,000 excess teachers, who have been drawing salary without doing any job.
The phenomenon of excess teachers started following a steady decline in the school-going population as a result of fall in fertility rates.
According to the 2014 economic survey, there are 5,412 schools without the required number of students (average 15 in a class). Such schools are termed uneconomic.
There were as many as 8,076 excess teachers in the state as on 2013-14. Of this 3,389 teachers have been given regular postings. A total of 2,987 teachers are retained in the teachers' bank with salary to be absorbed against future vacancies while 1,700 have been terminated.
More and more schools in the government and government aided sectors are turning uneconomic as the state is inching towards zero population.
The growing preference among the new generation for private education and central syllabus has confounded the situation.
A recent study by the education department showed that more than 3500 schools in the state in 2014 had less than 30 students each. The number of teachers found in these schools in an online survey was 46240. This means 13 teachers for every 30 students. This works out to one teacher for every two students.
The study revealed that as many as 593 schools had students between 10 and 20. On an average there are 11 teachers to teach 16 students in these schools. The number of schools with students between 21 and 30 are 717 and 31 and 40 is 756. There are average 15 teachers to teach 25 students in the former and 17 teachers for every 35 students in the latter.
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