Kerala: Over 3,000 school teachers are excess in aided and government schools

Thiruvananthapuram: There will be over 3,000 excess teachers in aided and government schools up to class ten for the 2016-17 academic year, as per the data available with the DPI. The data from all districts reached the DPI office on Friday. The final number of excess teachers would be known only after the UID-based single-day verification process.

Teachers become excess when a division ceases to exist if the number of students is less than 25. There are already around 12,000 ‘protected’ teachers who have lost their jobs in previous years due to divisional fall. They have not received their salaries for April and May as the government has not taken any decision on their re-deployment.

However, Education Minister C. Raveendranath has said that no teacher would be denied salary in the wake of staff fixation. A final decision on redeployment of excess teachers will be taken after compiling the data and assessing the financial commitment over it.

According to a government order, teachers who were appointed on a regular basis before 2011 were included in the ‘protected’ category. The present teacher-pupil ratio was fixed at 1:30 in lower primary schools, 1:35 in upper primary schools and 1:45 in classes IX and X.