Contrary to the declaration of education minister for recruiting about 10,000 unemployed youth as guest faculty in the Government schools of the State, the education department is planning to scale down these vacancies to less than 3,000. Tough the senior officers of the department are not admitting it officially, it is clear that since the education department has recently announced recruitment drives for the posts of lecturers and lecturer Teachers (lTs), the posts for the guest faculty would be much less than what the Education minister declared.
The department has also initiated internal promotions for the vacant posts of lTs and lecturers. The education department is also wary of giving temporary appointments to the youth as they would surely raise a demand to regularise their services once they are appointed.There are about 4,500 posts lecturer Teachers (lTs) and 3,500 posts of lecturers in the education department, which are vacant at present. It is worth mentioning here that the process of new recruitments in these vacant posts is currently in process.
The Uttarakhand Public Service Commission has initiated a recruitment drive for 1,213 posts of lecturers and 3,000 posts of lTs. Similarly, the process for departmental promotions for 1,100 posts of lTs and 1,750 lectures is also pending, which effectively reduces the number of posts available for the guest faculty scheme. The Rajkeeya Shikshak Sangh (RSS), the organisation of lTs and lecturers of government schools has also raised its protest against scheme.
The President of Tehri unit of RSS, KK Dimri told The Pioneer that the education department should expedite the process of departmental promotions and new recruitments instead of adopting a temporary arrangement. There are thousands of Bachelor of Education (B Ed) qualified unemployed youth in the State, who are eagerly waiting for the guest faculty scheme as the process of appointment is less elaborate than the public service commission.