The government primary and secondary schools in the seven districts of Kalyana Karnataka region, which already faced teacher shortage, has received another blow with the government allowing inter-divisional transfer of teachers. The exercise has left 464 schools in Kalyana Karnataka with zero teachers.
Most of the teachers from south, Malnad and coastal Karnataka regions, who were serving in Kalyana Karnataka schools for the last 15 years, got transferred to their native places. However, the wide gap between the number of teachers going out of the region and coming into the region has triggered the current crisis.
Massive deficit
As per the details provided by the Department of Public Instruction in Kalaburagi, only 74 teachers are transferred to Kalaburagi division which comprises Bidar, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur, Koppal and Vijayanagara districts as against the transfer of 2,504 teachers from Kalaburagi division to other divisions creating the deficit of 2,430 teachers.
Raichur district is the worst-hit with the transfer of 981 teachers from the district. Only four teachers are transferred from other divisions to Raichur district creating the deficit of 977 teachers in the current transfer exercise. Koppal and Yadgir saw the transfers of 464 and 459 teachers. Koppal got 19 teachers and Yadgir only 5. Kalaburagi saw 330 transfers from the district against the reception of just 9 teachers. As many as 172 teachers from Ballari, 77 from Vijayanagara and 21 from Bidar were transferred to other divisions and these districts got 4, 25 and 8 teachers from other divisions, respectively.
The massive transfers from Kalyana Karnataka have added more vacancies to widen the gap between the sanctioned posts and the working posts across the region.
Yadgir is the worst-hit district in the entire State in terms of vacancies and occupied the bottom rung in the vacancy grid (55.10%) followed by Raichur (49.40%), Ballari (46.98%), Koppal (38.24%), Belagavi Chikkoti (37.92%), Dakshina Kannada (36.60%), Ramanagara (31.99%) and Kalaburagi (31.32%).
Davangere is on the top in the grid with 14.52% vacancies followed by Uttara Kannada (15.56%), Kolar (16.68%), Chikkamagaluru (16.71%), Chitradurga (17.21%), Tumakuru (17.56%), Hassan (17.59%) and Bidar (19.61%).
Guest faculty to fill gap
Speaking to The Hindu, Akash S., Additional Commissioner of Public Instruction, Kalaburagi division, said that the process of appointing the guest teachers would shortly begin to fill the gap temporarily.
“The process of appointing 13,000 teachers, including 5,000 teachers for Kalaburagi division is at the final stage,” he said.
Zero-teacher schools
Gajaladinni Government Primary School at Devadurga taluk in Raichur district has around 155 students studying from Class 1 to Class 5 and two teachers. The school in Namashamana Doddi village in the same taluk has over 50 students and two teachers. Now, all four permanent teachers from the two schools are transferred.
As per the information by the office of the Additional Commissioner of Public Instruction in Kalaburagi, there would be 464 such zero-teacher schools in Kalyana Karnataka after the transferred teachers are relieved from their current responsibilities. Once they are relieved from their posts, there would be no authorised teachers to take care of even the implementation of the midday meal scheme, let alone the teaching, in these zero-teacher schools.
Raichur is the major loser as its 160 schools would be left with no permanent teachers. Yadgir and Kalaburagi are next in line with 98 and 79 zero-teacher schools, respectively. Ballari, Bidar and Koppal will have 48, 44 and 35 zero-teacher schools, respectively. Vijayanagara is the only district which will have no zero-teacher school even after the completion of transfers. At Devadurga taluk in Raichur district alone, there would be 82 zero-teacher schools. There would be a number of schools across the region where only one or two teachers will have to handle a large number of students.
“Teachers from South, Malnad and Coastal Karnataka have served here for 15 years and we are not opposed to their transfers to their native places. But their transfer without a replacement would create a vacuum and disrupt the learning process. The government should withhold the transfers till October and take guest teachers in October vacation and fill the vacancies with permanent teachers by the beginning of next academic year,” Hafeez Ulha, a social activist from Raichur working in the field of education, said.
