Additional Physical education teachers to be transferred?

• Public education department postpones counseling process

Belman: The public education department has passed an order according to which physical education teachers in schools with less than 200 students strength will be considered to be additional teachers and will be appointed elsewhere.

Earlier, the department used to identify teachers as additional under the student-teachers ratio. Now, identifying the physical education teachers according to the same benchmark, the department has passed the order. Also it is deciding the date for appointment. The government has said that all schools must compulsorily appoint physical education teachers so that the students develop a love for sports from a very young age and grow into sportspersons.

Additional numbers in the district

In Karkala taluk 28 from 33 schools, 25 from 29 in Kundapur, 9 from13 in Udupi, 26 from 31 in Brahmavar, 31 from 38 in Byndoor have been identified as additional in the district. In Dakshina Kannad district, altogether 168 physical education teachers will be facing this predicament. There is an aim to appoint them to other schools through counseling in the decreasing order. Also there is a plan to conduct mass counseling and send physical education teachers from schools with lesser students to schools where the student number is more but lacks a physical education teacher.

Following the model which was implemented in the beginning of this year according to which a headmaster was appointed to a school with at least 60 students, physical education teachers too should be compulsorily appointed at schools with 60 students strength. The district teachers association fears that without a rule a teacher joining another school may end up as an additional staff.

Order confuses teachers

As per the rule the teacher identified as additional should go to another school. But there are physical education teachers at the 144 schools in the district and only 26 schools in them have have a student strength of more than 200. Due to this reason 118 teachers are in confusion.

The physical education teachers at Nayar Kodu, Kanyana and Inna in Karkala taluk also act as the headmasters. In that too, Ravindran at Inna school is the only teacher in the school. Since no solution has been depicted in the order, it has only exacerbated the confusion.

“In order to facilitate the change in the software for the appointment of the additional physical teachers, a circular from the department commissioner has informed that the counseling which was supposed to be conducted on August 26^th-27^th has been postponed,” said Sheshashayan Karanja, Udupi district student deputy director.

“The counseling has been stopped since all teachers associations and the peoples representatives from the teacher’s constituency have expressed objection to it. We are requesting the department commissioner to appoint the teachers at schools with at least 100 students strength. Already we have submitted a request through the peoples representative and also received assurances,” said Gujjadi Chandrashekhar Shetty, president of the Udupi district physical education teachers association.