Govt schools running short of over 2 lakh teachers

The government schools across the country are running short of over 2 lakh teachers at secondary and higher secondary levels.

While Bihar tops the list with the State showing the highest number of teachers' posts lying vacant in 2018-19, Karnataka comes in the eighth position when it comes to the vacancy of teachers at secondary (Class X and X) and higher secondary level (Class XI and XII).

As per data with the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry, as many as 33,908 teachers posts were lying vacant in government schools in Bihar in 2018-19 against the sanctioned strength of 76,691. The number of vacancies in the State constitutes over 44% of the total sanctioned strength.

In Karnataka, a total of 8,306 teachers' posts (15.52%) were lying vacant against the total sanctioned strength of 53,499.

The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir comes second in the list with a total of 25,799 teachers posts lying vacant in the government schools.

However, the vacancy of school teachers in the undivided J&K schools turns out to be highest in the country when calculated in proportion to the total posts sanctioned for the State. Against the total sanctioned strength 28,171, over 91.51% of teachers' posts were lying vacant in J&K in 2018-19, according to the HRD ministry's data.

The shortage of teachers in government schools was also very high in Uttar Pradesh. Against the total sanctioned strength of 24,392, as many as 16,087 posts of secondary and higher secondary school teachers (nearly 66%) were lying vacant in the State.

More than a quarter of sanctioned posts of teachers remained unfilled in the government schools in Madhya Pradesh. While the total sanctioned strength of teachers for the State was 76,478, a total of 19,455 posts were lying vacant in 2018-19.

Maharashtra and Mizoram were the only two states which did not face any shortage of teachers at the secondary and higher secondary levels with the two states filling all the posts sanctioned for them.

“The recruitment, service conditions and deployment of teachers come under the purview of the concerned State/Union Territory (UT) government,” Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank told Lok Sabha recently while replying to a question on the issue.

The HRD ministry has been requesting all the States and UTs for filling-up the vacant posts of teachers and their rational deployment, he also maintained.