Physical education teacher-student ratio rejigged

The physical education teacher-student ratio in schools in the State will be rejigged to 1:300 to protect teachers who had lost their posts.

A meeting convened by Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty here recently reached the decision. It will be sent for the Chief Minister’s approval.

The physical education teacher-student ratio currently is 1:500.

The meeting was held to discuss a slew of demands raised by school physical education teachers. When the 1:300 ratio is considered for upper primary (UP) classes, physical education teachers who lose their posts will be protected by clubbing the lower primary wing of the school too with the UP.

To protect high school physical education teachers, the number of physical education periods in class X too will be considered. At present, one post of physical education teacher is created if there are five divisions across classes VIII and IX. Class X divisions are currently not considered for the appointment. So if there is a division fall in classes VIII and IX, then the number of periods in class X will be considered to protect the teachers.

In high schools with UP section, high school physical education teachers can be clubbed with the UP wing to protect them.

Physical education teachers allege that an order protecting them had been issued as a temporary arrangement in 2017 when they had staged protests to press their demands. These had been issued since then too, but their demands such as change in teacher-student ratio through amendment in the Kerala Education Rules had not been addressed.

The physical education teachers have been demanding that all students in State schools receive physical education training. At present, lower primary classes have no physical education periods. Higher secondary classes have physical education periods but no teachers. There are only 1,800-odd physical education teachers in the State. Physical education teachers estimate that 85% of UP schools and 45% of high schools have no physical education teachers.

They point out that 11 teachers lost their posts last year while there were more this year.