Increased students, less teachers the reason Ludhiana, July 16 With the efforts of the state Education Department, enrolment of students in government schools increased manifold. The tragedy of the situation is that now the schools are lacking required number of teachers and infrastructure to accommodate those students. Schools have been left with no other option but to employ double shifts, but even that does not seem to solve the problem. Many cases of students leaving one government school and taking admission in another government school have come forward. Amidst all this, it is the students whose studies are suffering. Teachers on duty, too, are suffering with this difficult time. Government Senior Secondary Smart School in the Punjab Agricultural University campus recorded a high admission in Class XI this year. The highest number of enrolment has been in arts stream. As many as 600 students took admission in the stream, which has ten sections, while in for science and commerce, there are six and five sections, respectively. Each class has nearly 50 to 60 students. Sanjeev Thapar, principal of Government Senior Secondary Smart School, Punjab Agricultural University, said: “This year, as many as 1,609 new admissions were done in school, which have a requirement of 24 more teachers than the current lot. We have sent a demand for lecturers in various subjects but only 12 teachers have been sent on provisional basis by the Education Department.” Government Senior Secondary School Multipurpose was made co-educational in April this year and enrolled 1,047 new students in the school. This new strength needs 16 more teachers than the school already has. At Government Senior Secondary School, Dhandari Khurd, number of sections have been increased from 21 to 32 because of new admissions, but only has an availability of 29 teachers. The school requires more teachers to handle the rush of the students. Rajesh Kumar, principal of Government Senior Secondary School, Basti Jodhewal, New Subhash Nagar, said: “The classes for Class XI and XII are running in double shifts. This year, 200 new students enroled in our school. We have sent a demand of 10 new teachers. Classes are being held in double shifts and the demand for more teachers has been sent to the District Education Officer.” Swarnjit Kaur, District Education Officer, said the demand for more teachers has been received by the authorities and the schools would be given new teachers very soon.

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