HARDOI, UP, Feb 17 (UNI): For some students of primary schoolsin the district, state chief minister is Ms Mayawati while Fatherof the Nation Mahatma Gandhi is the country's Prime Minister.
The basic education department-run schools in the district are facing a severe shortage of teachers.
As a result, the class I to V students of Beramau and Gadaura area primary schools in the Sandila tehsil of the district answered Ms Mayawati as the chief minister of the state and Mahatma Gandhi as the Prime Minister of the country.
Sources said after the implementation of the statewide 'Education For All' programme, the students were going to school, but in the absence of adequate teachers the studies of classes I to V were being conducted in a single class.
Moreover, but for the school where they are officially appointed, the teachers are reportedly teaching in other schools.
In the Beramau primary school, Mukesh Chaturvedi is the lone teacher who has also been posted by the basic education department in the Gadaura and Uttar Kaundh area primary schools.
Sources said Mukesh not only was assigned to teach, but also had to handle administrative and other tasks like student scholarships and other government formalities.
While he takes a round of other schools, he reportedly posts his relative to take the class.
Similar is the case of Sandila block school teachers Girdhar Kishore and Salimullah who have also been attached with two other schools in the area.
In all, a single teacher has the responsibility to teach an average of 700 students in a day.
Meanwhile, district basic education officer R P Yadav admitted that though the schemes like 'Education for All', scholarships and midday meal have brought more students to school, the number of teachers was decreasing.
He said in 2,400 basic education department-run primary schools in the district, there were only 3,400 teachers, while 2,000 posts of teachers, which had been sanctioned, were lying vacant.
He said going by an average of one teacher per 40 students, an estimated 10,000 teachers were required in these schools.
Despite the appointment of 'shiksha mitra' in various schools, the system of proper education was not developing, Yadav admitted.
He also admitted that it was a fact that due to shortage of teachers, the department was forced to post them at several schools.
