Maharashtra: Over 42,000 teaching jobs vacant for past 10 years in state

Over 40,000 posts of teachers in schools across the state have been vacant for the past 10 years. Of these, 17,503 are vacant in schools run by Zilla Parishads, while 25,000 posts are in private, aided schools, etc. According to education department officials, efforts are being made for new recruitments through the Pavitra Portal.

The approximately 42,503 posts have been vacant since 2012 when the government prohibited recruitments. The recruitments had restarted through the portal in 2019, but stopped after the pandemic. Zilla Parishad schools have now decided to fill the posts on contractual basis for the time being, due to the rise in the number of students.

Recruitment prohibited

After May 2, 2012, the government prohibited the recruitment of teachers in primary, intermediate, and upper secondary institutions due to various issues such as scams in hiring. It also conducted investigations into irregular recruitments. It had also rejected the proposal to create different divisions in suburban schools, for students from closed down schools in South Mumbai.

Also read: Maharashtra: No. of private schools go up by 73 per cent in 10 years

In 2012, the government prohibited the recruitment of teachers in primary, intermediate, and upper secondary institutions due to various issues such as scams in hiring. Representation pic

The government conducted a survey in 2015 and discovered incidents of irregular recruitments and extra teachers at various educational institutions. Many schools were found to have fictitious students on record so they could hire more teachers. According to a census, the teacher-student ratio was less than 1:25, and in certain schools, it was 1:9. The ideal ratio is 1:30 or 1:35.

In December 2015, the former state education commissioner declared the approval of 32 teachers in Pune illegal. Similarly, 98 false approvals were confirmed in Washim district. All the appointments were cancelled and salaries drawn by the appointees for preceding three years were instructed to be taken back.

The state government also came across 6,000 cases of irregular appointments of teachers in state-aided schools across Maharashtra after 2012.

In January 2016, the school education and sports department again prohibited new teacher appointments pending final decisions on the central selection process for teachers' recruitment. A circular was issued directing the commissioner of school education, director of the primary education department and the director of the secondary education department not to approve any such recruitment.

As per the United District Information System for Education (UDISE) data for 2020-21, there are 1,10,114 schools across the state, with a total of 7.67 lakh teachers. "The department is collating the exact number of teacher vacancies across the state. Some districts have shown surplus teachers, however, we do not have a clause where we can transfer them to schools in districts where the posts are vacant. We are working on the issue," said a senior official from the state school education department.

‘Issue not resolved'

Sunil Shejule, a coordinator of Marathi Shala Sansthachalak Sangh and a member of Marathi Abhyaas Kendra, alleged that no government was able to resolve this issue. "Governments have changed, ministers have changed from Vinod Tawde to Varsha Gaikwad, but all have failed to resolve recruitment issues. At the same time, corruption in the system is just rising. Now Deepak Kesarkar is the education minister, isn't this an issue that the department should take up on priority?" he said. Shejule added, "This is a time when schools across the country are working to bridge the learning gap in students. How can it be achieved when there is a dearth of teachers? Students in the state have suffered, and the government has failed to take note of this. We have reached out to the school education department multiple times since 2012, however, even after a decade, there has been no resolution of the issue."

Another matter

The Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE) recently disqualified 7,880 candidates for their involvement in the manipulation of marks in the 2019-2020 Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET). While 7,500 of the 7,880 candidates allegedly paid for forging results, to show them as ‘eligible' in the final exam, 293 candidates secured fake certificates projecting themselves as eligible candidates after the results. IAS officer Sushil Khodwekar; Tukaram Supe, commissioner (now suspended) of Maharashtra State Council of Examinations; Pritesh Deshmukh, director of G A Software, the firm which was responsible for conducting the exam; and Abhishek Sawrikar, consultant, education department, were arrested in the matter. However, this has further hampered the issue of teachers recruitment.

42,503
No. of approximate teachers' posts vacant in the state