State to recruit teachers after four-year freeze

Mumbai: After a four-year-old freeze on the recruitment of teachers in state-run and state-aided schools, education minister Vinod Tawde has now assured that around 24,000 teachers will be given jobs by May this year.

In state-run and state-aided schools, the state gives a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to school principals or the management, empowering them to recruit the teachers.

However, sources from the state education ministry confirmed that the state stopped giving NOCs four years ago, as they did not have sufficient funds to pay the teachers their salaries.

This resulted in the schools facing the issue of not having enough teachers. On the other hand, a large number of teachers were left unemployed despite having degrees like Bachelors of Education (B.Ed) and Diploma in Education (D.Ed) to their credit. Teachers are happy by the assurance from the government but are still sceptical about the move.  “Till now, they have only given verbal assurance. We will only believe once we see the result,” said a teacher.

Another teacher, Rukmini Shrivastava feels, “The last few years were very demotivating for the new generation of teachers as they were unable to get job opportunities despite studying and excelling in competitive exams like the Teachers Eligibility Test. This was causing people to distance themselves from the profession.”

Along with this, the ministry have changed their teachers’ allocation, which will be in effect from the coming academic year. Now, instead of one teacher for the entire class no matter what the number of students is, 30 students will have one teacher and a class of 60 students will get two teachers.