Schools’ merger proposal faces resistance from teachers in Ludhiana
Educators across the state, including the Ludhiana district, opposing the decision, mentioned that there are more than 30 primary and upper primary schools in the district that are in the same building but function separately as the academic needs of primary and upper primary students are entirely different
In compliance with the National Education Policy 2020 of the central government, the state education department has launched a pilot project aimed at merging primary and upper primary schools that run in the same building, for which a survey has already been initiated in Fatehgarh Sahib.
However, educators across the state, including the Ludhiana district, opposing the decision, mentioned that there are more than 30 primary and upper primary schools in the district that are in the same building but function separately as the academic needs of primary and upper primary students are entirely different. This step would repel the students as the schools in the state are already dealing with staff crunch and merging them would create chaos, affecting the quality of education.
Jagwinder Singh, Democratic Teachers’ Front’s (DTF) convener, said, “This is an impractical step as the elementary teachers are not eligible to take upper primary classes and vice versa. Moreover, teachers in the primary schools are already overburdened due to them handling academic and non-academic work simultaneously, so if they were asked to conduct the classes for the students of middle school, then it would hamper the quality education.” He added that the administrative heads are different for both schools, along with them receiving grants separately, then without making changes in the administrative bodies, the merger would be inefficient.
DTF district president Daljit Singh said this is a way to decrease the number of posts of elementary and master cadre teachers by the government. “There are several primary schools in the district functioning with a single teacher and upon merger, it would only create chaos as instead of the teachers required to teach the students till Class 5, the ones from the middle school would be asked to do the needful. The government has been running away from its responsibility of filling the vacant posts, rather, is coming up with such vague proposals,” he added.
He further mentioned that the same had been proposed in the past as well where after 3-4 months of experiment, the decision was withdrawn leading to harassment of students and faculty.
District education officer (elementary) Ravinder Kaur remarked, “As of now, we have not received any official information regarding the same in the district, but the merger might not be fruitful as primary and upper primary schools function separately with separate administrative heads.”