Despite High Court freeze on recruitment of BTC trained Shiksha Mitra as assistant teachers, the State Government has initiated a process to appoint over 2.44 lakh teachers in primary schools so as to improve the education standard at village level.
“The appointment process has begun a drive to fill over 2.44 lakh vacancies in education sector. The B.Ed, TET teachers would be appointed as assistant teachers. The process has also begun to accommodate Shiksha Mitra as assistant teachers in the state run primary schools,” Basic education minister Ram Gobind Chaudhry told The Pioneer here
Chaudhry said that the Government is committed to provide quality teachers in the schools. A process was initiated to appoint 91,000 teachers and over 77,000 teachers were appointed in primary schools so far. But High Court has stayed the recruitment process putting a freeze on this appointment of over 77,000 teachers, he said.
“Despite this set back the Government has set a target to appoint over 2.44 lakh teachers in primary schools. In the first phase Government has set a target to accommodate 1,52,085 Shiksha Mitras who have passed BTC through correspondence course. Of them 1,37,517 teachers have been appointed and process is on to appoint the rest of the teachers,” Chaudhry said.
The basic education has come under fire after High Court has ordered that children of senior officers, doctors and engineers should go to government schools. The court hoped that this order will improve education standard in primary schools. The court was piqued over poor teacher-student ratio and lack of basic facilities in the school like, class rooms, and toilets.
“We know about the problems in the Basic Education department. Government is committed to improve infrastructure. The beginning has been made by appointing teachers. The biggest bane in education department is court cases. Any good initiative is challenged and our efforts come back to square one,” the minister said.
He said that this Government has also initiated a process to appoint B.Ed TET pass assistant teachers. “Government sets to appoint 72,825 teachers this fiscal of which 59424 trainee teachers have been appointed. They have even taken charge,’ the minister said.
The minister said that the Government has also started recruitment of Urdu teachers. The department has announced 4280 vacancies and against it 2341 teachers have been appointed so far.
“Besides this process is on to appoint additional 15,000 assistant teachers in primary schools,” he said adding that if everything goes as planned we will have over 2.40 lakh teachers by the end of this fiscal.