Hyderabad: Coming under heavy criticism, the Telangana government has once again changed the staffing pattern in government schools.
Now, the government primary schools with less than 20 students will be allotted a single teacher while those between 20 and 60 students will have two teachers.
This will still leave several thousands schools with just one teacher, which would have to remain shut if the teacher takes leave. The government had earlier issued staffing pattern orders allotting just one teacher to schools with enrollment less than 30 students.
About 7000 schools would have become one-teacher schools if the diktat was followed.
But criticism poured in from all quarters and teachers’ unions also lambasted the government for taking such a decision. Under pressure, the government revised the rules but even then, about 4000 schools will be single teacher schools.
“Earlier staffing pattern rules mandated a minimum of two teachers for schools with low enrollment. But even then only one teacher would work. The duo would have an understanding and one teacher would work for one week and the other the following week,” a senior official of the TS education ministry said.
The government has also mandated that zero enrollment schools will have teachers. About 486 such schools exist in the state where there is not even one student enrolled.
