About 17,000 teaching and nonteaching posts are lying vacant in the Government and the Government-aided high schools across the State. School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra told this to the Assembly in response to a question by Dilip Ray (BJP) on Thursday.
Mishra informed that there are 4,626 Government, 656 fully aided and 2608 partly aided high schools in Odisha. In the Government high schools alone, there are 7,324 vacant teaching posts, including 3,000 in science subject. As many as 2,192 high schools have regular headmasters, while 2,434 Government high schools have no regular headmasters. Mishra told that the headmaster posts would be filled by means of promotion of experienced teachers.
In the aided high schools, 681 teachers’ and 353 non teachers’ posts are vacant. More than 3,000 posts are vacant in the Block Grant high schools, the Minister said.
Expressing grave concern over the issue, Ray alleged that while the BEd and CT educated youths of the State are going jobless, the Government has been appointing Contract Teachers with low salary to exploit them. He also alleged that the Arts, Sanskrit and Hindi teachers are asked to teach science subject in the high schools as the teachers on the subject are not available. He urged the State Government to take immediate steps to fill the vacant posts in the high schools to revive a healthy academic ambience.