The State Government's decision to add 800 new posts for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the ongoing recruitment process of primary teachers has prompted the Other Backward Castes (OBC) candidates to protest. On Friday many OBC candidates lodged their protest at the office of the State Backward Class Commission.
The education department has started a process to recruit 1898 posts of primary teachers in the month of February; it later added 96 posts for SC, ST and OBCs as they were left vacant in the last recruitment.
Recently the department also added 800 posts for SC and ST only in this recruitment process. This decision which favored only SC and ST has not gone well with the OBC candidates and to give vent to their anger they went to the State backward cast Commission. An OBC candidate Praveen Nautiyal said that the department has shown impartiality towards OBC candidates, he said that the OBC candidates are feeling cheated by this decision and they are now planning to form an organization to fight for their rights. The Primary Education Director DS Kunwar said that the department has taken care to follow the rules in the recruitment process; he added that the high court has asked them to complete the process of recruitment but issued a bar on declaration of result till the matter is cleared by it.
It is to be noted that this would be the last recruitment of B.Ed., TET qualified youths in the primary teacher cadre of Uttarakhand. The National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) has made it clear that only Diploma in Elementary Education (D. El. Ed) qualified youths should be considered for appointments in the posts of Primary teachers.
There are about 25000 B. Ed./TET qualified unemployed youths in Uttarakhand, these youths carried out a long agitation demanding that the process of appointments in the vacant posts of the primary teachers in the schools of the state should be completed as soon as possible so that they are not debarred from becoming Primary teachers as per the new guidelines of NCTE.
