Where are all the teachers and books?

BANGALORE: Across 33 Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) High Schools, the consistent problem seems to be the lack of teachers.There are 301 vacancies across nursery, primary and high schools that need to be filled but the academic year has begun and the students have no teachers.In the Boys High School in Pit Colony in M D Block, Malleswaram, there are two permanent teachers, two teachers who have been hired from the agency, also called the ‘outsourced’ teachers and one retired teacher who continues to teach. The biology teacher comes to teach on a rotation basis which would mean three days per school.But the headmaster of the school maintains that there is no problem. “We have sufficient teachers. Overall there are five teachers teaching 83 high school students and some nursery students as well,” he asserted. The admission process is still going on and the number of students is bound to increase.BBMP officials admit that there is a huge number of vacancies that need to be filled. S Harish, the Deputy Mayor, believes that this issue needs to be taken up further and promises to raise it in the next Council meeting.The Opposition leader, M Udayashankar, says that he has already raised the issue in the council and that the matter is now with the State Government. “We thought the corporation would handle this issue but the State’s Public Instruction Department has decided to appoint teachers,” he asserted.To supplement that, V Ashok, the additional commissioner, BBMP, education department said that the government has informed the corporation that it will fill up the vacancies through a Common Entrance Exam conducted by the Public Instructions Department.While this process is completed, students can only hope to find a teacher in their classroom this academic year.  BBMP school goes CBSEThe BBMP School at Srirampura has implemented the CBSE syllabus from this academic year. This is being implemented in association with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.The new syllabus has been introduced in the nursery, LKG, UKG and first standard classes.Both the BBMP and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan share the responsibility equally. While the infrastructure at the school is the Corporation’s responsibility, the teaching and course work is under the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Also the contribution towards the student strength is also equally shared. The Corporation and Vidya Bhavan bring in 20 students each.“We have just introduced the CBSE syllabus this year.We will slowly introduce it to other classes as well. This is the first CBSE BBMP school in the city,” said Ramesh Raju, the Chairman of the Education Committee, BBMP. School of rocksAlong with having to deal with the rubble and dust from the construction work nearby, the children studying at BBMP’s school in M D Block do not have classrooms. Balakara Proudhashale (Boys High School) run by the BBMP is situated in one corner of the BMP Playground in Pit Colony. Housed in a small building, it currently accommodates nursery, 8th, 9th and 10th standard students.Right next to the school, the corporation is constructing another building which proposes to host three of the school’s classrooms. But the construction work began a year ago and it is yet to reach completion. There is one small classroom in the current building that can barely house 20 children comfortably. There are five cupboards lined up against the wall that act as libraries.Five, sometimes six students sit on one bench wrestling for space while the teacher uses the infamous cane to discipline them.When asked about the new classrooms, the headmaster said that the local MLA has promised to complete the construction of the ground floor by the end of June.Meanwhile temporary classrooms have been set up in another building in the BMP playground that also houses a newly inaugurated gym. Just above the gym, there is one long classroom that accommodates both the 8th and the 10th standard students.A curtain separates the two classes where a class of 25 on one side learn Kannada and 34 students on the other side learn maths.Just below this classroom is a gym that was opened on June 11, the annual membership for which is `4,100. The local MLA and the corporator have sanctioned this gym but the school building remains incomplete. When contacted, G Manjunath Raju, corporator, Kadu Malleswara, said that the school project went through a ‘standstill’ period and that the file had to be re-validated. “We have pressurised the authorities to complete the construction.We hope to complete it in the next two or three months,” he asserted.  The missing notebooksBefore the academic year began, the deputy mayor promised to distribute textbooks and notebooks to all BBMP schools. But the academic year has begun and the students have still not received their share of notebooks.Schools say that they have received textbooks but the students have to manage on their own at the moment when it comes to notebooks.“The notebook stock has been received. It is the teachers’ responsibility to come and collect the books for their respective schools,” said S Harish, the deputy mayor, when asked about the notebooks.