Tujang Vaichong Government High School has been found reeling under an acute shortage of teaching and non-teaching staff despite being one of the best-performing government schools in the district.
The school has a high number of students enrolled with more than 600 pupils, as evidence for being the best-performing school. Surprisingly, there are only seven teaching and non-teaching staff to run this school.
The Kuki Students' Organisation Sadar Hills team led by its general secretary Thangtinlen Haokip accompanied by Kuki Inpi Kangpokpi members who visited the school on Friday were shocked to find the shortages.
Speaking to the media, KSO Sadar Hills education secretary Abraham Haokip conveyed the student body’s unhappiness over the situation.
He said that the school is under the state government's School Fagathansi Mission and has one of the highest numbers of students within the Kangpokpi district.
He also said that the school has been one of the best-performing Government Schools within the district.
However, there are only seven teaching and non-teaching staff at the school at present after the retirement of three staff and the transfer of five other staff with no replacement. Therefore, the school is facing huge administrative problems, he added.
Haokip asserted that as per the Right to Education Act of 2009, especially regarding the pupil-teacher ratio, there should be one teacher for every 30 students at the Primary level and one teacher for every 35 students at the Upper Primary level.
To that matter, a mere seven teaching and non-teaching staff for over 600 students is more unjustifiable, he added.
The student body then appealed to the authority concerned to arrange a replacement at the earliest for the retired and transferred staff of the school to the strength of 19 teaching staff and 2 non-teaching staff to run the school smoothly.
