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292 schools closed or merged in Haryana in 2022, says Union government in Rajya Sabha
State education minister Kanwar Pal said his government will recruit over 20,000 PGT, TGT and other teachers through Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC), HPSC and HKRN, which will improve the overall numbers
During the ongoing budget session of the Parliament, the Union ministry of education on Wednesday told the Rajya Sabha that a total of 292 government schools in Haryana were either closed or merged in 2022.
Dr Subhas Sarkar, Union minister of state was replying to a question asked by Lt Gen (Dr) D P Vats (retd), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s member of parliament (MP) representing Haryana in the Upper House.
Dr Vats had asked about the number of schools in Haryana that have been merged due to a lack of qualified faculty and the number of students in these schools. The lawmaker had also sought details on the steps being taken to address the shortage of qualified teachers and to improve the number of students in the schools.
In his reply, the MoS said, “Haryana government has stated that no school has been merged due to lack of qualified teachers, however, a total of 292 government schools have been closed or merged due to zero or less than 25 strength of students in the year 2022.”
It was told that the state government has sent a requisition to the recruiting agency to fill up 4,476 posts of postgraduate teachers (PGTs) in various subjects as well as 952 posts of primary teachers. Further, the government has also filled 379 posts of PGTs and 874 posts of trained graduate teachers (TGTs) in various subjects through Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam (HKRN) as well as a requisition to fill up 472 posts of PGTs and 2,670 posts of TGTs has also been sent to HKRN to address the shortage.
Reacting to the development, Udai Bhan, state president of the Indian National Congress (INC), however, alleged that the students left due to a lack of teachers and basic infrastructure.
“The government is not working to address the issues; rather they have closed down schools to reduce sanctioned posts for teachers. They are removing PTIs, guest teachers and when there is a time for recruitment, the question papers are leaked,” the Congress leader said.
Satpal Sandhu, state president of the Haryana school lecturers association (HSLA), argued that students in the state are suffering due to the lack of teachers in the schools.
“The government has been repeating this same PGT recruitment announcement since last year. Also, there should be permanent recruitment through the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) rather than HKRN, where the salary difference of nearly one-third,” Sandhu added.
As per the data presented before Vidhan Sabha in February 2022, there are nearly 32% (38,476) posts of teachers vacant in the state against the sanctioned posts of 1,20,966.
State education minister Kanwar Pal said his government will recruit over 20,000 PGT, TGT and other teachers through Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC), HPSC and HKRN, which will improve the overall numbers.
The minister clarified that schools were merged based on primary and secondary classes of two schools, and the principal of the school higher in level was made head of both to count them as one, without changing the number of teachers or infrastructure.
“We have also restarted 66 schools that were closed due to lack of students, and now the number of students has increased. The number of students in government schools has also increased by 3.25 lakh in 2021-22, as compared to the previous session. Also, we are recruiting almost double the teachers via HPSC and HSSC while only 6,000 have been recruited through HKRN,” he added.
