Vacancies for teachers' jobs exist and don't

However, officials of the department claim that as many as many as 365 excess teachers are working in the district.

As per the statistics, the number of sanctioned posts of teachers for 932 primary schools in the district is 4,637. Officials say that the current strength of 4,914 teachers is in “excess” and that “schools in the district do not face problem of shortage of teachers.”

According to the statistics, the district needs 168 Kannada language assistant teachers, but officials contradict the figures, stating that there is no shortage.

Deputy Director of Public Instructions C Chamegowda said that as per the current government rules, the pupil - teacher ratio is 40:1 and accordingly the number of teachers is in excess. Further, he said, “the teachers requisition also reduced following the reduction in the enrolment rate.”

The department has the provision to sanction two teachers, if the school has at least 20 students. For  additional teachers to be posted, the number of students should cross 80 as per the 40:1 scheme, he said. The Karnataka Right to Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules 2010, yet to be passed by the State Cabinet, require the the pupil-teacher ratio to be reduced to 30:1, he added.

Yet another interesting fact that statistics throw up is that the reduction in the enrolment rate in primary schools is negligible. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) Deputy Programme Co-ordinator Shivaprakash said the enrolment in the primary schools is shrinking only by 0.5 to 1 per cent every year because of the reduction in the number of population and ‘other reasons’. The district has 932 government primary schools with a total of 1,28,649 students including 65,700 boys and 65,949 girls.

Non-teaching staff

As for non-teaching staff posts, the 180 vacancies in the district include superintendents, first grade assistants, second grade assistants and ‘D’ group employees. Though 134 posts of ‘D’ group employees are vacant at various schools in the district, they may not be filled through fresh recruitment.

The Deputy Director of Public Instructions said  the government fills the vacancies either through transfers or by offering compensatory job to children of those employees, who die during their service period.