Teachers' shortage: Cops foil villagers' bid to block Delhi-Jaipur highway

GURUGRAM: Five days after the parents locked the gates of Government High School in Rathiwas village in Pataudi, the villagers on Wednesday attempted to block the Delhi-Jaipur highway to protest against the shortage of teachers.
Scores of villagers of Rathiwas and neighbouring villages met on Wednesday morning to carry out a march all the way till Delhi-Jaipur highway and block the traffic to register their anger over lack of teachers and disruption in education.The villagers also locked the gates of the school and made sure that no teacher or student entered it until the issue was resolved. The protest march, however, was stopped by cops.
"We are just very upset with the entire episode of lack of teachers in the school. For two weeks we have been running pillar to post to request officials to address the issue. They gave us hollow assurances but failed to provide educators. The school already was having fewer teachers and the recent transfer further brought down the numbers. We were left with no option but to block the highway because that's the only way administration wakes up to the issues of the people," said School Management Committee (SMC) member Mahendra Singh.
The villagers have claimed that the recently concluded transfer drive of the teachers has reduced the number of educators in the school. The school lacks students for core subjects such as Mathematics.
According to the students, the school has total sanctioned posts of nine teachers and only six teachers were available before the transfer drive commenced. After the drive, school is left with just two teachers for around 170 students in classes 6 to 10. About four teachers have been transferred.
"We have only two teachers-one for Sanskrit and another for Social Studies-for a total of five classes. We have no teacher for Maths, Science, English, and Hindi. As a result, we are not learning anything. The classes have been put on a halt for three weeks now. I'm really worried because I have to appear for board exams in March next year and I have learnt nothing so far," rued Sangeeta, a class 10 student in the school.
On Sunday, TOI reported that the parents had locked the school gates and demanded that the transferred teachers either be reinstated or new ones be appointed. The district education officer had told TOI that the issue will be resolved within a day or two. However, the school gates have been locked since then as villagers are adamant that school will not open until new teachers are appointed.
"We are trying to arrange teachers for the students. The matter has been taken up with the senior officials and we'll try our best to address the issue," said block education officer Dharampal Singh.
"We will be arranging two teachers from a city-based NGO and they would take classes for the time being," SDM Ravinder Yadav said.