BHOPAL: More than 22,000 posts of teachers are vacant in government primary and middle schools in the state.
There are 1.41 lakh primary and middle schools in the state, in which a total of 78.95 lakh students are studying. They are being taught by 2.92 lakh teachers. Of them, 2.01 lakh are males and 91,000 are females – this, despite the fact that there is 30 per cent reservation for women in teaching jobs.
Significantly girl students outnumber the boys by 1.77 lakh. According to the school education department, 4146 posts of teachers are vacant in primary schools. The corresponding figure for middle schools is 18,267.
According to guidelines of the department, a primary school should have at least two teachers and a middle school three.
Going by the norms, in middle schools the number of required teachers is 1,57,164 but presently only 83,898 teachers are working. This means that there is a shortfall of 73,266 teachers.
For the last several years, the department has not recruited teachers. The Professional Examination Board is ready to conduct the recruitment exam but the school education department is yet to get the proposal cleared by the cabinet.
Even the Jan Shiksha Kendras are in dire straits. There is no permanent teacher in the 5,320 Jan Shiksha Kendras in the state.
As many as 4,406 Kendras are being run by teachers on deputation and around 900 kendras are without teachers.
Not only this, administrative posts in the department are either vacant or have been filled by officials on deputation right from the state to the block level. Out of the around 9000 posts, nearly 3000 posts are vacant.
175 zero-teacher schools in Sushma’s constituency
According to unified, district information system for school education (U-DISE), Singaroli district has the highest number of the zero teacher in schools -399, Vidisha district part of the constituency of Sushma Swaraj had 175 zero teachers schools. Rural schools suffer from acute shortage of teachers, but in urban area teachers are surplus, there are 17,495 in primary school and 5,545 in middle schools. There are 1,14,360 primary schools in the state. The constituency of Sumita Mahajan has nine zero teachers schools and 95 schools have only one teacher, in the rural areas. But in the urban the highest numbers of surplus teachers are in Indore district, 1,047 primary teachers and 685 are the middle school teachers. Former chief minister and present Union minister Uma Bharti native district Tikamgarh had 82 zero teachers schools and 227 one teacher schools.Union rural development minister Narendra Tomar constituency Gwalior had 838 surplus teachers in urban areas but 75 zero teachers school are waiting to get at least one teacher. Union social justice minister Thawar Chand Gehlot resident of Ujjain and state education minister Paras Jain the member of Vidhan Sabha, had 576 surplus teachers in urban and 77 zero teacher schools in rural.
