With the 2014 general elections in mind, the Congress’ growing proximity with the JD(U), post its split with the BJP, could see the Centre clearing the decks for the Nitish Kumar Government to recruit 1,00,000 untrained teachers in Bihar — a proposal which the UPA dispensation chose to ignore for the past one year despite the State Government’s persistent requests to take a call on it.
After approving two Central Universities in the State last year and a multi-crore special package recently, the Centre is likely to allow the Bihar Education Department to recruit 1,00,000 “untrained candidates” as teachers for secondary and senior secondary schools. The Centre’s move comes after nearly a dozen follow-ups by theBihar Government. The Supreme Court has made it mandatory for teachers to be appointed only after qualifying the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET).As this requires a special exemption in the selection criteria of candidates from TET, the Department of School Education and literacy,
HRD Ministry, has sought the Union law Ministry’s opinion in this regard. Sources said that National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) has committed to consider Bihar’s proposal.
Sources said for the past one year the HRD Ministry did not pay heed to the repeated follow-ups by the Bihar Government including its Education Minister Prashant Kumar Sahi’s communication to Union HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju. “However, after JD(U) broke its ties with the BJP the file concerned was immediately sent to the law Ministry,” the sources in the Ministry pointed out.
In fact, one of Sahi’s letters to Raju was strongly-worded after his earlier requests went unheeded. “It is unfortunate that the requests and clarifications of the State Government are being treated so lightly by an institution of Central Government. In my earlier letters to you, I have highlighted the reasons why Bihar needs to appoint untrained teachers in schools. I would like to request you to kindly respect the federal structure of the country and assign adequate attention to genuine and reasonable requests of the State Government,” he maintained.
Sahi, considered to be very close to Nitish Kumar, recently lost the prestigious Maharajgunj lok Sabha bypoll against an RJD candidate.
The Bihar Government had petitioned that though a large number of candidates possess the required qualification, their numbers are inadequate to meet the existing requirement for appointment as teachers in secondary and senior secondary schools. “The availability of trained teachers is insufficient to fill in the gap as the career of over 30 lakh students is at stake due to non-availability of required number of untrained teachers,” informed the Bihar Education Department in its December 2012 letter to the HRD Ministry.
The State Government also requested the NCTE for a one-time relaxation to fill the vacancies from among the selected untrained candidates.
Former HRD Minister Kapil Sibal had announced setting up of two Central Universities in Bihar - in Motihari and Gaya - through a Special Status against the norm of only one Central University in a State. It was then seen as the UPA Government’s way of thanking Nitish Kumar for his support to Pranab Mukherjee in the Presidential election.