Bhubaneswar: About 17,761 teacher posts are lying vacant in Primary and Upper Primary schools across the State while 16,519 teachers will be recruited to fill up the vacant posts soon, said School & Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond in Odisha Assembly.
Stating that 16,519 junior teachers will be recruited in the state soon, the Odisha S&ME Minister said that the process of recruitment of TGS teachers is going on in the state, while the government is going to start the recruitment process of junior teachers in a few days.
Concerns were expressed in the Assembly on Friday over the shortage of teachers in primary and secondary schools in the state. Many MLAs raised similar allegations and expressed concern about the question of BJP MLA Padmalochan Panda.
Congress MLA Sophia Firdous, MLA Manoranjan Samantaray, Pradeep Sahu, Sunil Mohanty, Prashant Jagdev, Yogesh Kumar Singh and CLP leader Ramchandra Kadam raised this issue and demanded the recruitment of teachers as soon as possible.
Minister Gond said, in his reply, that his government accepts the situation of teacher shortage in the state and to address the issue arrangements are being made to hire 16, 519 junior teachers soon. On being recruited, these teachers will be placed in schools with no teachers and schools with one teacher.
The minister said that the government will reassess those schools which have been closed due to a low number of students. If necessary, consideration will be given to reopening those schools.
Referring to the problem of many schools not having their land, the S&ME Minister said, “The Chief Minister is aware of this problem. He has also discussed with the Revenue Minister.”
“ Those schools which do not have their land, if they apply, steps will be taken to get land on their behalf,” Minister Gond added.
