‘Lack of teachers spoiled Vellore’s Class 12 show’

The Collector’s revelation to DTNext follows Monday’s incident when students of the Government Higher Secondary School at Panapakkam near Arakkonam boycotted their classes and blocked traffic on Panapakkam-Ocheri road, protesting inadequate number of teachers. 

Nearly 950 students are on rolls in the government school, while 208 of them are in Class 12 in the current year. The protesting students complained that there was no Tamil teacher for nearly a decade. 

“This is likely to affect the pass percentage in Class 12 exams again,” they claimed, adding that there were no teachers for Chemistry and Agriculture as well. Nemili police had to rush to the spot and pacify the students. 

“The school in question lacks 51 PG teachers. As there is no new recruitment for now, we have arranged for existing teachers to handle other subjects,” Raman said. “We do not transfer teachers from one government school to another at random as it will affect the parent school,” he added. 

Although the Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) have been tasked with appointing fresh teachers with their funds, majority of the teachers don’t last more than a couple of months as only Rs 3,000 was being paid as salary per month, district officials said.