More students, less teachers in civic schools

Mumbai: While on one hand, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has a reason to celebrate this year with a spike in the number of registration and admission of students in their schools; the diminishing number of teachers is a great course of concern of them.

According to Sheetal Mhatre, a Congress corporator from Dahisar and a member of the education committee, “The schools in our section has only one teacher for 100 students. This way, we have at least three extra classes with no class teacher. Imagine if we get even more students without teachers?”

One of the corporators suggested opening a door of ‘internships’ for the B.Ed students of the SNDT Women’s University. “Teachers doing their B.Ed can gain training by teaching the students. It will give them a hands on experience and the corporation will benefit from the workforce,” suggested the corporator.

Initially, the BMC’s aim was to increase the number of students as it were facing the issue of dropouts in its schools due to the poor quality of education, lack of facilities and bad infrastructure. According to NGO Praja Foundation’s report, enrolment of students in Marathi medium schools has decreased by 38 per cent in the last five years, i.e. between the academic year 2011-12 and 2015-16.

Shubhada Gudekar, chairperson, BMC education committee said, “Right now, everyone is on aholiday because of the Ganpati festival. I have kept the suggestions in front of the education officers to act on them. The way we have been successful in increasing the number of students, we will soon be successful in bringing more teachers as well.”