It’s heartening to note that the State Government has finally woken up to the grim reality of teacher vacancy in schools and colleges, crippling the normal functioning of the institutions. Coupled with recruitment of contractual and Block Grant teachers, large scale teacher vacancies played a cruel joke
on the need to provide quality education at the secondary and college levels in
the State.
The Chief Minister has asked the School and Mass Education Department authorities to set up a teacher recruitment board to look into appointment of teachers in high schools. He has asked the department to fill all vacant posts in the next four years.
This is a welcoming gesture on part of the Naveen Patnaik Government which in its long tenure of the last 15 years virtually shut a blind eye to vacancies in educational institutions due to fund crunch.
While higher vacancies had affected teaching in schools with many subjects left incomplete or untouched before the annual examinations, it was always the students who bore the brunt. Contractual appointments and Block Grant systems in thousands of high schools at the grassroots had worsened the scenario.
The Government has also set the process in motion to set up model schools in each block. This is done to ensure quality education and maintain parity in providing educational benefits in rural and urban areas.
The Government also has shown urgency to appoint teachers in aided colleges through Service Selection Board (SSB). As the SSB had gone defunct for long years, staff crunch had gone severe in many aided colleges.
Over 1,600 posts will be filled through the SSB. Henceforth, the colleges will inform about its vacancies to the SSB from time to time and the latter will take timely steps to meet the requirements.
However, one thing that needs to be taken note of is, last time when the SSB had sent its candidates to different colleges, it sparked off a row, with the already appointed ones by the governing body of the colleges exerting their local influence to thwart the move. They did not allow the SSB candidates to join their duty as a result of which many had to go back. The Higher Education Department has to enforce its blanket ban on local appointments strictly, lest unsavoury situation of the past should occur.
Over and above, what the School and Mass Education and Higher Education departments have been deliberately sweeping under the mat is the problem of Block Grant. The Block Grant system is in force both in schools and colleges for long years denying basic dues to the employees. Interestingly, the Block Grant staff members constitute a large part of the pie so far as staff strength in schools and colleges of the State is concerned. These employees have been demanding grant-in-aid (GIA) for a long time now. Though the Government has been using their services mostly to run thousands of schools and colleges across the State, surprisingly it is callous about fulfilling their singular demand for GIA.