The third annual day celebrations of the Chennai Girls Higher Secondary School (CGHSS) of the Chennai Municipal Corporation (CMC) on March 1 were marred by the attempted suicide of science teacher P. Jagatheeswaran (41) who consumed hydrochloric acid in the school’s laboratory. According to CGHSS sources, Jagatheeswaran was reprimanded for neglect of duty by the corporation’s education officer, K. Ravichandran, present at the school on an inspection visit. The incident shocked and enraged the 4,000-strong faculty of CMC which manages 281 free-of-charge K-10 schools, affiliated with the Tamil Nadu state board in the city. When Jagatheeswaran was rushed to a hospital in critical condition, hundreds of them besieged the corporation headquarters to protest “inconsiderate education officers”. Bowing to their demands, CMC suspended Ravichandran and the school’s headmaster, R. Thyagarajan. According to CGHSS teachers, the suicide attempt was the fallout of a “trivial administrative issue”. Education officer Ravichandran had asked four science teachers for the attendance register and science records of class X students. When he learnt the students were not carrying their notebooks with them, being the school’s annual day, and that teachers had not signed them, he demanded a written explanation for the delay. Despite the teachers’ repeated pleas to withdraw his request, Ravichandran didn’t relent. Unable to bear the stress, Jagatheeswaran consumed acid in the school lab. This tragic incident over a trivial issue has turned the spotlight on high stress levels Chennai corporation school teachers experience, and the various factors which have contributed to it. Currently 4,000 teachers of CMC’s 281 schools teach and mentor 100,000 students. Inevitably, CMC schools suffer severe infrastructure deficiencies and are characterised by poor learning outcomes and declining enrolment. In April 2010, CMC upgraded the image of its schools by renaming them Chennai Schools, giving them fresh coats of paint and introducing a system of fortnightly inspections by education officers in Chennai’s ten zones to ensure improved learning outcomes. CMC also decreed that schools which scored 100 percent pass percentages in public examinations would be rewarded. Two years later, the great expectations of CMC officials remain unfulfilled. Continuous pressure from civic officials to improve learning outcomes in CMC’s crumbling schools — ill-equipped in terms of libraries, laboratories and lavatories and suffering high teacher absenteeism — has served only to raise teachers’ stress levels. “We are under constant pressure to obtain 100 percent pass results in board examinations. If a few students fail, we are grilled and reprimanded by education officials,” says a corporation school teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity. Falling enrolment, fear of closure and transfers are adding to teachers’ tensions. The aggregate enrolment in CMC’s primary and upper primaries declined last year, although it is “satisfactory” in high and higher secondary schools. According to CMC statistics, the total number of students enroled in primary and upper primaries declined from 63,641 in 2010-2011 to 58,929 in 2011-2012, and the aggregate number of students in class I across all schools is a mere 5,138. “There is stiff competition from private and aided…
