Palli Kalvi Pathukappu Iyakkam (PKPI) in Coimbatore district has requested school education department to take steps to fill teacher posts at vacant places in Coimbatore corporation schools, before school reopening.
PKPI district coordinator C Chandrasekar said, "No regular Physical Education Teachers (PETs) in many corporation high and higher secondary schools. Instead of, a few schools have been appointed PETs as part time under Parent Teacher Association (PTA) fund and they are working in schools with low salary. As they comes three times once to schools in a week, corporation school students are not willing in sports activities and they do not get a proper training from part time PETs to participate in the district and state level competions. Coimbatore corporation to take necessary steps to appoint regular PETs along with school education department ."
"Nextly, corporation should ensure a teacher in each class from I to V in primary education, even less number of kids in school. Especially, parents do not show interest to admit their kids in corporation school citing working less number of teachers and lack of basic amenties in a few schools. Especially, Science and Social Science subject posts are being vacant in high schools. We found these issues during PKPI survey," he said. A Parent, P Rangaraj (name changed), said, "Teaching is good in Varadharajapuram corporation high school. But no regular PET teacher here and few teachers posts are still vacant. If regular teachers are in school, students would get the benefits in all aspects such as education, sports, etc."A teachers who works in corporation school has alleged that corporation did not provide counselling for the teachers the past two years. If they conduct counselling, surplus teachers would be transferred to vacant places in high and higher secondary corporation schools.
When asked about whether any steps taken to fill teachers post with school education department, Corporation Education Officer (CEO) A Valliyammal has refused to answer and she denied to say the number of vacant places in corporation schools.There are 84 schools from primary to higher secondary under Coimbatore corporation.