SHILLONG: Financial constraints have prevented the Education department from appointing adequate number of teachers in schools in West Garo Hills leading to a situation where there are as many as 101 single teacher schools in the district.
The issue of single teacher schools was raised by Witting Mawsor (HSPDP) in the House on Tuesday through a call attention by quoting RTI findings on the large number of single teacher schools in West Garo Hills.
In his reply, Deputy Chief Minister in charge Education, R.C. Laloo, while admitting that there are 101 single teacher schools in West Garo Hills, said that the department has not been able to sanction additional teachers in many primary schools due to fund constraints.
“Nevertheless, the department is taking steps to ensure that such schools are equipped with additional teachers to comply with RTE norms in pupil teacher ratio through the process of rationalization,” Laloo said.
According to Laloo, the single teacher schools are spread over Gambegre, Dalu, Rongram blocks and Tura urban area.
“There are 47 government LP schools in the single teacher category out of which, 8 government LP schools are having single teachers due to the termination of services of ‘tainted teachers’. There are 54 single teacher non-government L.P. schools and the total is 101 – both government and non- government schools,” Laloo said.
As per the block wise break-up – there are 20 government LP single teacher schools and 21 non-government LP schools in Rongram Block; 13 government LP and 18 non-government LP schools in Dalu Block; 14 government LP and 11 non-government LP schools in Gambegre Block and 4 non-government single teacher LP schools in Tura urban.
Laloo said that the Department was aware of the inconsistency in the number of teachers in the LP schools even as he sought the cooperation and support of all the members of the House to the endeavour of the department to improve education in Meghalaya.
