Schools merge classes, rope in locals for daily ops to tide over crisis
Times of India | 6 April 2025
Kolkata: Schools are merging sections and planning to take several other measures to manage the manpower crunch after the Supreme Court verdict, which resulted in the loss of jobs for 25,752 teachers and non-teaching staff.
While some schools may rope in local people to perform daily activities like opening and closing the classrooms and ringing the bell, a few others are planning to request affected teachers and non-teaching staff to come to schools so that managing administration and academics becomes a bit hassle-free in the times of crisis.
The headmistress of Gokarna Nritya Gopal Girls' High School (HS), Baisakhi Chattopadhyay, said, "Running an HS school with over 2,000 students has become a challenge under this situation. We have three sections from classes V to X with approximately 90 students in each section. After the SC verdict, we lost four teachers. Our science classes will suffer as we are left with one pure science teacher and one bioscience teacher. So, we have decided to merge section C with A and B to manage the manpower crunch."
Jodhpur Park Boys' School has a Group D staff member whose job has become uncertain after the SC order. Headmaster Amit Sen Majumdar said, "He is very efficient and manages our chemistry, physics, and biology labs well. So, we held a meeting and have thought of keeping him as a contractual staff member if he agrees until the stalemate is resolved."
Kanakanagar SD Institution at Hingalganj will lose its only maths teacher, an education teacher and a Group C staff member. Headmaster Pulak Roy Chowdhury said: "Not only will academics be hampered, the management of the school will also collapse. Moreover, these teachers were also given responsibility as nodal persons to execute different govt scholarships. The school is also dependent on the only non-teaching staff member with computer skills for maintaining data and uploading them on govt portals. We have requested them to carry on with their duties and they have assured us that they will do so."
A Howrah HS school with 1,000 students lost its only Group C clerk. "It is impossible to run a school without any non-teaching staff. We are thinking of roping in locals to open and close classrooms, ring the bell, deliver roll call sheets to classes, organize exam papers and hand them to examiners," said the headmistress of the school.
Bhawanipur Mitra Institution headmaster Raja Dey said, "It is a catastrophic situation at the school as our two teachers of Bengali and Maths are on the list. They take 25 classes. But we are thinking of discussing the crisis with the managing committee so that we can hire part-time teachers. I am also thinking of writing to the district inspector about ‘utilised teacher' where a teacher from a school with lower roll-strength can take some of our classes."