Teachers flay govt move to merge middle schools and high schools

Education Minister Harjot Bains had recently said that middle schools in the state will be merged with high schools with the consent of the MLA of the constituency concerned and the sarpanch of the village. While the proposal is still in its early stage, Education Department officials have been asked to prepare ground report on the middle schools in their respective areas for implementation.

While the minister had cited the shortage of students in middle schools as one of main reasons for merger, teachers’ body Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) has raised objection to the move, saying that it will directly impact students studying in middle schools. “It is clearly unfair to the poor, backward and disadvantaged students and unemployed teachers. Merging middle schools will throw commute challenges for students of these schools, who will then have to travel to high schools situated relatively five to seven kilometres away from their current schools. Since middle schools run classes fifth to class eight, the students will be dependent on school commute of personal commute, while currently many come to school by walking. Also, this move will also eliminate posts of teachers, as middle schools already have vacancies that need to be filled,” said Ashwani Awasthi, district unit head of DTF.

Citing that currently, most middle schools are located in rural belt as there was a need to provide easy access to education for students from underprivileged background, the move might just discourage parents from sending their wards to high schools, located at a long distance. While Bains in his announcement had shared that school buses would be provided to students, who would have difficulty in commute, this would be done as a minimal fee. Also, it is yet unclear whether the high schools with which the middle schools would be merged with, have the required staff and faculty to support the additional student intake. “There is already a high number of vacancies at various primary, middle, high and senior secondary schools across the state. Instead of hiring specialized subject teachers in middle schools to improve education, the merger would only be a short sighted decision,” said Awasthi.

With roughly 270 middle schools in Amritsar, with each school having student strength of 40-80 students. Several middle schools face a huge gap in teachers’ strength vis-a-vis student strength that’s waiting to be filled. Most of the schools also require non-teaching staff, including helpers and sweepers. The middle schools falling under the rural/border belt including in villages of Chogawan II block, Tarsikka, Rayya, in villages like Cheema, Rajatal etc have a lower enrolment of students with a combined strength of 40-50 in Classes 6-8. Due to lack of teachers in some of the schools, students of Classes VI, VII and VIII are made to sit in a single classroom and a single teacher is deputed for all the subjects.