The Committee on Estimates of the Assembly has recommended that all schoolteachers be transferred once every five years.
The committee, headed by K.K. Shailaja, in its report on utilisation of the General Education department’s budget allocation, moots the transfers to ensure services of quality teachers in every school. At present, only higher secondary teachers are transferred every five years, though they can apply for transfers after three years.
The report for 2021-23 says transfer of lower and upper primary and high school teachers can be considered every five years.
Recognising the importance of residential teacher training provided by the department, the committee calls for conducting such programmes at regular intervals.
The committee calls for creation of permanent posts of IT/computer teachers at the secondary level. Posts of computer/IT teachers already exist at the higher secondary level, it points out.
Laying emphasis on English education, the committee calls for staff fixation in the current academic year so that posts can be created in schools that do not have teachers for English and steps taken for their appointment. In schools that had only one division for Classes VIII, IX, and X, high school English teachers posts were not sanctioned, and other core subject teachers handled English lessons, the committee observes.
Students are not getting physical education in the absence of physical education teacher posts in schools that have fewer students, the committee says, calling for steps to overcome this situation.
It recommends that the State government enhance the material cost (cooking expense) for the midday meal scheme in proportion to the 9.6% increase effected by the Union government since October 1, 2022.
The committee report calls for exploring the rearrangement of vacant Plus One higher secondary and vocational higher secondary seats to areas where there is huge demand for them. It also recommends that the General Education department pay attention to conducting Plus One admissions as soon as the SSLC results are out so that academic days are not lost. It calls for considering publication of government order on textbook printing earlier so that orders for purchasing paper can be placed earlier.
