Centralised board to recruit college teachers in Assam: Minister

GUWAHATI: The Assam government on Thursday informed the Assembly that a centralised recruitment board will be formed to appoint teachers in colleges, which has been asked not to conduct any new hiring process on their own.

Replying to a query by AIUDF MLA Ashraful Hussain, Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said his department is facing almost 2,500 court cases and most of them are related to recruitment in schools and colleges. "That is why we have not been able to make new recruitments in colleges since 2017.

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We have now decided not to go for any new recruitment based on academic records (by colleges). This system leads to controversies and court cases," he added. The government has now decided to recruit teachers in colleges and universities on the basis of a selection test, Pegu said. "We have decided to set up a centralised recruitment board and a college teacher will be posted in his or her choice of college after clearing the selection test," he added.

The education minister said that at times one candidate applies to more than one college but the applicant can join only one, even after getting selected in all of them. Other colleges are then forced to restart the recruitment process from scratch. He said that the colleges that have already advertised seeking teachers will be allowed to complete the process this time.

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"We have asked to hold the processes to those colleges who have not advertised their posts. We will soon start the centralised system," Pegu said. He said a total of 640 teaching posts in colleges are lying vacant across Assam, while the figure for non-teaching posts is 834. Assam has 4,44,630 students, 8,590 teachers and 3,500 non-teaching staff in colleges and universities, Pegu said.