Mumbai public schools face teacher shortage

MUMBAI: The Mumbai public schools (MPS) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which were set up in 2008, are facing an acute shortage of teachers in the face of rising number of students.

The civic body came up with the concept of MPS to provide English education to its students. However, it has only 502 teachers for over 27,000 students in 84 schools.

According to the BMC education department officials, the number of students is rising as most parents prefer English medium schools for their children.

Also, the MPS schools have Kindergarten (pre-primary) to Class 10, unlike the regular schools that are only till class 8.

“Because there is no separation in sections or classes in MPS, parents prefer taking admissions here rather than in other English or semi-English medium schools run by us (BMC).” said the official who manages the MPS.

She added, “Starting MPS was a gradual process. We gradually increased the classes and now we successfully have till class 10. The student number is rising very fast which cannot be matched by the strength of the teachers, as it is a tedious and lengthy process to recruit them.”

Moreover, out of 84 MPS schools in Mumbai, 20 schools are managed and run by private Non Governmental  Organisations. “For these schools, we do not provide teachers as it is the management’s responsibility.” the official said.

The remaining 64 schools have teachers recruited by the BMC. As a solution, the department is planning to recruit 301 more teachers, especially for the MPS.

According to officials, the teachers who will be recruited will need a Diploma in Education (D.Ed) with English language or class 12 pass in English medium and will have to go through special interview sessions before getting placed.

In the academic session 2016-17, the result for the class 10 students of Mumbai Pubnlic Schools  was only 55% to 65% which is very low compared to other private schools and BMC-run vernacular/semi-English medium schools. The reason for this is lack of enough teachers for the students.

History of Mumbai Public School system

BMC introduced MPS in 2007-08 to provide English education to its students as vernacular medium schools were seeing consistent dropouts.

In the beginning it had only 20 to 40 schools, which is now doubled into 84 fully developed schools from pre-primary to secondary all under one roof.

Areas like Kurla, Govandi, Goregoan, Santacruz, Bandra has most number of
students in MPS.

What does the RTE Act say about the Pupil Teacher Ratio in schools?

According to the RTE Act, 2009, the Pupil Teacher Ratio for primary level should be 30:1 and at the upper primary level is 35:1.