Nearly 30,000 teaching posts vacant in Maharashtra, Telangana in Classes 1-8

NEW DELHI: As many as 18,204 teaching posts in Maharashtra and 11,348 teaching posts in Telangana schools are vacant at the elementary level – Classes 1 to 8 – according to the minutes of the Project Approval Board (PAB) meetings conducted by the ministry of education to decide funds allocation to Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).

In Telangana, 38.8 percent of schools had a pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) below the recommended level, according to the education ministry data. At the primary level, the Right to Education (RTE) Act mandates a PTR of 30:1, that is one teacher for every 30 students for Classes 1-5 and 35:1 for Classes 6 to 8. The PAB minutes for 2022 show that there are over 5.6 lakh teacher vacancies across 15 states in India, with Bihar and Uttar Pradesh being the worst off.

Telangana schools also recorded a “surplus” of nearly 7,000 primary teachers. This indicates a surplus of teachers in certain schools, likely in urban areas, while a large number of vacancies exist in other schools.

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Telangana schools also had nearly 5,000 vacant teaching posts at the secondary level, according to the education ministry data. At the secondary level, only 79 percent of schools in Telangana have teachers for all core subjects, the data showed.

Teacher vacancy; funds shortage

Maharashtra education, despite the huge teacher vacancies of over 18,000, has a satisfactory PTR at the elementary level. The PTR for upper-primary schools, for instance, is 23.27.

However, Maharashtra was unable to complete pending civil work at the primary level for the past two financial years due to a shortage of funds, the PAB minutes revealed.

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“State has taken up pending works on priority during the financial year 2020-21. However, due to paucity of funds, pending civil works could not be completed. For the year 2020-21, only Rs 6.31 crore received against the Rs 146.54 crore approved for civil works and in the current financial year (2021-22) no fund was received to the state for non-recurring activities,” the PAB minutes read.

Maharashtra did not take up civil works sanctioned for the secondary level due to shortage of funds for the financial year 2021-22, according to the education ministry's PAB minutes. For instance, Maharashtra did not start the construction of 133 out of the 139 approved toilets for boys in government secondary schools due to the lack of funds.