Thiruvananthapuram: Statistics with the office of Director of Public Instruction (DPI) revealed that 71 batches will become excess if all Class X students in Pathanamthitta district pass the SSLC examinations in 2015.
This statistics based on the enrolment figures is an eye opener on how Plus Two batches would become excess in the coming days. It should be remembered that the DPI arrived at the statistics, before the beginning of this academic year, without considering the 35,000 seats sanctioned this year.
In 2016, excess Plus Two batches will increase to 109 in Pathanamthitta. Apart from that, Alappuzha district will have 18 excess batches and Kottayam will have 52 excess batches that year.By 2019 the situation will become such that Thiruvananthapuram will have 48 batches, Kollam 148 surplus batches, Pathanamthitta 165, Alappuzha 125, Kottayam 127, Idukki 47, Ernakulum 131 and Thrissur 4 surplus batches.
Moreover, the surprise check conducted by DPI had uncovered that aided school managements had fabricated the number of students in aided schools. Sources said that in 2013-2014 academic years, the aided schools had fabricated students’ data by including over 1.75 bogus students. This would further reduce the actual number of students in the coming days.
The General Education Secretary, A Shajahan, told Deccan Chronicle that DPI inquiry into the suspicion that schools have uploaded false UID numbers of students, for inflating the students’ strength, was going on. The total number of Plus Two batches after allotment of new batches by the Government last week, stood at 7277.
Ernakulum got the highest number of 26 schools when 699 new batches were allotted by the Cabinet last week. Interestingly Ernakulum district which got the maximum number of new batches had 1,942 vacant merit seats after the first round of allotment.
This year, with 4, 66,875 student passing SSLC, the total number of seats for Plus Two stood at 4, 41,948. This meant that there was a shortage of 22,000 seats. However, it should also be taken into account that the State had 27,500 VHSE seats, 11,000 ITI seats, 16,000 ITC seats and 22,000 polytechnic seats. If these seats are also considered there are 5, 16,948 seats available for those who passed Plus Two in the State.
The former president of the Government School Teachers Union, Kerala (GSTU), J Sasi, said that even though the Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, said that no permanent appointments would be made for the new batches, as aided school managements have already taken steps to appoint teachers.
Given the history of appointments in aided schools, it is almost clear that these appointments would be regularised in a latter period, Mr Sasi said.
Kerala Pradesh School Teachers Union (KPSTU) president, P Harigovindan said that the school ideally should have been allotted after a proper scientific study. V B Ajayakumar, Executive Director, of RIGHTS, an organisation conducting research in the field of education said that ideally the Government should have rearranged the seats by transferring courses from areas where there was an excess of seats to areas which did not have sufficient seats, Mr Ajayakumar said.
The problem now was that there was an excess of seats in southern district and a shortage of seats in Northern district. There was also an excess of seats in cities and shortage of seats in rural areas with predominantly Adivasi and Dalit population, Mr Ajayakumar said.
