Continuing his tirade against the Naveen Patnaik Government's move to appoint retired teachers for temporary filling of vacancies in schools under a ‘Teacher on Call’ plan, BJP leader and Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday again advised the former not to cause collapse of the school education system in the State and ensure quality education.
In his message on the Teacher’s Day and Ganesh Puja through Twitter, Pradhan said that at present a total of 1,07,752 teachers, Gana Shikshaks and Shiksha Sahayaks, are appointed in primary schools in Odisha on contract.
Earlier, the Union Minister had also slammed the State Government for its ‘Teacher on Call’ scheme saying teachers should not be hired like drivers of Ola and Uber cab services to take classes on a call basis.
Pradhan said that while as many as 376 schools in Odisha lack own buildings, nearly 80 percent schools have no playgrounds.
“As many as 1,07,752 teachers are working on contractual basis in Odisha. A total of 13,977 posts are lying vacant in high schools. In such a situation, how quality education will be ensured,” questioned he.
“Instead of appointing thousands of BEd and CT candidates, who are waiting eagerly for jobs as regular teachers against these vacant posts, the Government has decided to fill up these posts through its ‘Teacher on Call’ policy. “let the Government refrain from unethical practice of providing paltry salary to the contract teachers and terminating them later as per its whims,” he maintained.
Quoting official records, Pradhan said there is no high school in 38 gram panchayats in the State while 376 schools do not have their own buildings.
He further said that out of 53,252 schools, 42,070 do not have a playground which is about 80 per cent of the total schools in the State.