Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 15 Sep: In a unique display of protest, students of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) in Nyangno village in Pijeriang circle of Pakke-Kessang district organized a march on Sunday night to protest against inadequate number of teachers in the school.
Reportedly, 90 students embarked on a foot march from Nyangno village at around 12 o’clock on Sunday night, covering over 65 kilometres, and reached Lemmi, the district headquarters, on Monday morning.
It is learnt that the protest march was led by the students of Class 11 and Class 12, joined by other students, demanding immediate posting of subject teachers for geography and political science. It is further learnt that the Class 11 and Class 12 students were frustrated over the non-posting of two subject teachers, even though half of the academic session has already passed. The delay in posting of subject teachers triggered anger among the students, which prompted them to take out the midnight foot march holding placards reading ‘A school without a teacher is just a building’.
On being contacted, the headmistress of the school informed that the school lacks geography and political science subject teachers and it has adequate number of teachers for the remaining classes. She added that the courses have already been completed for the half-yearly examination.
The headmistress rued that the students unwittingly showed the school’s name in bad light by stating that a school without a teacher is just a building.
An Education Department source informed that KGBV Nyangno is being run by Seppa (East Kameng)-based Sei Donyi Charitable Trust. It has 13 full-time teachers, and two more (geography and political science) teachers have already been recruited and they are joining the school soon.
In order to strengthen the faculty members at KGBVs and NSCBAVs, the education commissioner had issued an order on 27 August, directing all the DDSEs to ensure that the teachers from consolidated (merged) schools are allocated to KGBVs/NSCBAVs according to the prescribed pupil-teacher ratio. The commissioner further said that there is a complete ban on new appointment of part-time and full-time teachers and school wardens for KGBVs/NSCBAVs, and added that any recruitment made in contravention of this order would be treated as null and void.
