The Jharkhand High Court today accepted a revised timeline proposed by the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) for the appointment of 26,000 school teachers. According to this timeline, upper-primary school teachers will be appointed by the first week of August, and primary-school teachers by the second week of September. The High Court asked the JSSC to file a compliance report by 30 June. In an earlier affidavit, dated 11 April 2025, the JSSC had proposed a much longer timeline, stretching until January 2026.
On 16 April, the High Court asked the JSSC to revise and shorten this timeline. Piyushita Meha Tudu advocate arguing on behalf of the petitioners, reminded the Court today that many more appointments are required to ensure compliance with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Act 2009 with respect to pupil-teacher ratios (PTRs).
Under the Act, the PTR should not exceed 30 in any primary or upper-primary school, and every school should have at least two teachers. In a new affidavit, filed on 21 April 2025, the petitioners (Jean Drèze and Paran Amitava) present estimates of teacher shortages in Jharkhand. They draw attention to a statement made by the Ministry of Education in the Lok Sabha on 19 September 2020, in response to Unstarred Question No 1243 of 2020.
According to this statement, there were 95,897 “vacant posts of teachers of government schools” in Jharkhand in 2020-21. Most of these vacancies are at the primary and upper-primary levels. The number of vacancies is unlikely to be lower today, and may even be higher, since no teacher appointments have been made in Jharkhand since 2016.
Independent studies, notably by Prof. Geeta Kingdon (University College London) and Sandip Datta (Delhi School of Economics), confirm that Jharkhand would need much more than 26,000 additional school teachers to meet the pupil-teacher ratio norms of the Right to Education Act, 2009. Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao acknowledged this new affidavit at the hearing today and said that this matter would be taken up after the JSSC submits its compliance report at the end of June.