1.41 lakh posts of teachers, headmasters vacant in UP govt primary schools
With over 1.41 lakh posts of teachers and headmasters lying vacant across UP, government-run primary and upper primary schools, numbering around 1.59 lakh, are reeling under acute shortage of teachers.
With over 1.41 lakh posts of teachers and headmasters lying vacant across UP, government-run primary and upper primary schools, numbering around 1.59 lakh, are reeling under acute shortage of teachers, reveals latest data available with UP basic education department.
Officials share that updated details regarding vacant posts have come light through data collated as part of the inter-district transfer exercise of Basic Shiksha Parishad’s teachers recently.
Although reluctant to go on record, basic education department officials say these vacant posts are besides the 69,000 posts of assistant teachers the recruitment process for which is held up as a result of an ongoing litigation in the Allahabad high court.
“If these posts also included, the number of vacant posts will go up to 2.1 lakh,” said a senior official of the state basic education department.
He said if one looks at just the government-run primary schools in the state, a total of 1,60,533 posts of teachers and headmasters are lying vacant.
“Even if one deducts the 69,000 posts stuck in litigation, 91,533 posts are still left vacant. If one sees the upper primary schools, an additional 50,088 posts are vacant,” he added.
The state government has stopped direct recruitment of assistant teachers in government-run upper primary schools numbering around 45,625 in the state. The government has decided that vacant posts here are to be filled only through promotions, share officials. Before that, direct recruitment of 29,334 assistant teachers of science and mathematics were initiated in 2013. However, that too attracted litigation and filling of vacant posts out of these is sub judice in the Supreme Court, they claim.
In these upper primary schools, 1883 posts of headmasters are also lying vacant, say officials.
The government-run 1,13,289 primary schools in the state also face another piquant situation. Here the number of headmasters far exceeds the numbers prescribed by norms. Norms say that only schools having 150 or more students can have a headmaster. The government has resolved to not remove any headmaster who at present is stationed in a school. As a result, against 22,444 sanctioned posts of headmaster, the state’s primary schools have 68,191 headmasters working in them— an excess of 45,747 headmasters as per the new data, said officials.