Over one-third posts of govt school teacher vacant
Sushil Manav
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 5
Over one-third of the posts of teaching as well as non-teaching staff in government schools in Haryana are lying vacant.
Statistics of the School Education Department in Haryana show that of the 1,28,732 sanctioned posts of teaching cadre, only 86,246 are filled while 45,446 are lying vacant.
Of these vacant posts, 13,731 are filled by guest teachers. Among postgraduate teachers (PGTs), 21,513 teachers are working against sanctioned strength of 38,174.
But with a total of 1,925 guest teachers also working at this level, a vacancy of 14,736 PGTs exists in the department.
Among trained graduate teachers (TGTs), 26,165 teachers are working against the sanctioned strength of 37,888.
The situation, however, is better among primary teachers (PRTs), where all 42,289 sanctioned posts are filled — 36,485 by regular teachers and 6,022 by guest teachers.
In the non-teaching cadre that includes officers from the Additional Director-level to Class IV employees, only 13,727 officials are working against sanctioned posts of 21,190, leaving a vacancy of 7,501.
Sources said the shortage of teachers had been showing its effect on the enrolment, which had been witnessing downward trend over the past some years.
Enrolments in Classes I to V in 2012-13 was 13,43,958, but it dipped to 12,72,491 in 2013-14, 12,00,871 in 2014-15, 9,51,254 in 2015-16, 9,10,206 in 2016-17 and 9,18,241 in 2017-18.
Similarly, from Class VI to VIII, the enrolment had been 7,28,389 in 2012-13 and 7,64,373, 7,57,341, 6,61,397, 6,15,962 and 5,96,516 in the subsequent years.
The downward trend in enrolment had also been witnessed in Classes IX to X and from XI to XII.
However, Rajiv Rattan, Director, Secondary Education, Haryana, said the vacancies had not been affecting the teaching work in the schools.
“The department plans to rationalise teachers since in some schools there are more teachers than the actual need while there are other schools where there is shortage of teachers,” he said.
