PIQUANT SITUATION IN SCHOOLS IN MUMBAI

Only science teachers qualified to teach environment studies

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Here’s a contradiction of sorts. According to a recent circular from the state education department, while a junior college teacher in any subject can teach environmental education part time, only a qualified science teacher with an MSc and BEd degree can be appointed to teach the subject full-time.
Sharwaree Gokhale, principal secretary, school education, refused to speak to this reporter or respond to SMSes on the issue.

“This is bizarre,’’ says Arundhati Chavan, principal of Aishabai College of Education, Byculla. “Environmental education is an integrated subject that affects every aspect of life. Several junior colleges have appointed geography teachers for environmental education. How can the department say that only science graduates are qualified to teach the subject fulltime?’’ she asks.
While environmental science is a compulsory 100-mark subject in Std XII, a junior college with under 12 divisions cannot appoint a full-time teacher for the subject, and has to make do with the existing staff. Currently, the subject is taught by a crosssection of teachers from various fields, including Hindi and mathematics. Teachers who take less than 26 periods a week are asked to teach environmental education.

“I have taught mathematics all my life. While bouncing math problems off students is my forte, I am clueless when asked to teach environmental education,’’ a college lecturer told TOI. A Hindi teacher who could barely string together a few sentences in English, said she found it rather hard to teach environmental education.

A college principal said the state had made a mockery of environmental studies. He said most colleges were shortstaffed and it was tough on the existing staff to juggle environmental education alongside their regular curriculum. What’s more, he felt the recent circular was discriminatory, as only science teachers were allowed a full-time appointment for environmental studies.