Recruitment proposal for Eklavya schools leaves existing teachers in a bind
The Hindu
While the Union government has a target of finishing a total of 740 such schools by 2025-26, currently, just 401 of them are functional and are facing a significant teacher shortage.
As the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs looks to finalise the recruitment rules for hiring over 38,000 teachers and support staff for 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools across the country, the jobs of around 4,000 teachers are hanging by a thread — teachers who are already working at nearly 400 of these schools — with the Union government having calculated the staff requirement without considering those already working in these schools.
While the Union government has a target of finishing a total of 740 such schools by 2025-26, currently, just 401 of them are functional and are facing a significant teacher shortage. At these schools, there are nearly 4,000 teaching staff, which include principals, postgraduate teachers, and trained graduate teachers.
According to guidelines issued by the National Education Society for Tribal Students (NESTS), each school is meant to have at least 26 teaching staff, translating to 10,426 teaching staff for 401 schools.
To address the teacher shortage, which was being caused in part by the variation in recruitment rules across the States and Union Territories, the Union government decided to directly start recruiting teachers for these schools in 2022. The announcement was made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech.
However, according to statements submitted before a Parliamentary Standing Committee, the Union government’s calculation for the staff requirement did not consider the existing teachers at the functional schools. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs had told the House panel that it had arrived at the 38,000 figure based on the NESTS guidelines, which prescribe 52 staffers for each of the 740 schools (26 teaching staff and 26 non-teaching staff).
Senior Ministry officials said that with this recruitment set to start by the next fiscal year, the most at-risk would be contractual teachers, who make up over 58% of the current teaching staff. They would be followed by those on deputation from the respective State governments, who number a little over 12% of existing teachers.
The teachers on deputation said that they did not have much to lose as they could just go back to the State Education Department and get posted to government schools. But guest teachers and those on contract have said they are worried about their positions and wonder if they will get priority during the fresh round of recruitment.