Parents lock school protesting dearth of teacher

BELGAUM: Protesting against the dearth of teaching staff, parents and the members of the School Development and Management Committee (SDMC) locked the Government Kannada Primary School at Basavan-Kudachi village in Belgaum taluk on Tuesday.Though the school remained closed all day, no official from the education department visited the school. The school has a strength of 130 students, but there are only four teaching staff to handle them all. As per rules, there should be one teacher for every 30 students. Though the SDMC has been demanding more teaching staff for the last two months, the authorities did not do anything in this regard. According to sources, on Tuesday, one of the teachers was absent, leaving only three others to take care the children.During a casual visit, SDMC president Basavaraj Patil noticed it and he called all the other SDMC members and parents to the school. After discussing the problem, they asked all the school staff and students to walk out of the school and locked it.They have decided to keep the school locked till the vacant posts are filled.