ONE OF THE reasons being advanced for the spectacular election loss of Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) whose tally of seats in the new Lok Sabha has fallen to five from 23 in 2009, is that it completely antagonised the massive 606,000-strong teachers’ community in the state — a surprising gaffe given that the SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav began his career as a higher secondary teacher in 1963.
According to sources within the teachers’ community, although an estimated 1 million qualified school teachers in India’s most populous state (200 million) are doing the rounds of employment exchanges, the SP government has done precious little to fill the 288,000 teacher vacancies from primary to class XII in government schools, after it swept the state assembly election of 2012.
From primary to higher secondary classes, there are a total of 287,970 vacancies in the state. Against this during the past two years the SP government has “initiated the process” to recruit 10,773 BTC (basic teachers certification) and 2,341 Urdu medium teachers.
Although numerous promises have been made by the SP government to fill all teacher vacancies, they haven’t been kept. For instance in January, an announcement was made pledging direct recruitment for science and maths teachers posts with the process to be completed by February 25. The pledge was not honoured, forcing teachers to move the high court where the matter is pending. Similarly, 172,000 para teachers working in primary schools were to be promoted to the post of teachers after completing their BTC training, but implementation of this resolve was postponed till after the general election.
To win the support of UP’s 48 million-strong Muslim community a teacher eligibility test (TET) was held in February to recruit 1,939 Urdu language teachers. But Nutan Thakur, a Lucknow-based social activist, has obtained a stay order from the Allahabad high court, alleging discrepancies in the conduct of the test. “The test was held against the guidelines prescribed by the National Council for Teacher Education. My prayer before the court is to cancel all TETs for language teachers,” explains Thakur.
TET has been the subject of controversy in UP ever since it was made compulsory for all teachers in 2010. A list of 72,825 primary and upper primary teachers who cleared the test was published in 2011 by the then BSP government. However, while campaigning for the 2012 Vidhan Sabha (legislative assembly) election, Yadav had promised to scrap the single exam TET and replace it with a system of selection based on a combination of candidates’ marks scored in class X, XII, B.Ed and TET. Implemented after the SP swept the Vidhan Sabha election of 2012, candidates who had cleared TET 2011 went to court, resulting in a delay in implementing the new system.
Since then, even though the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of the new teacher selection system, the state government has failed to appoint teachers against mounting vacancies in government schools. “It will take time to comply with the court’s orders. Several test results have to be checked,” says Nitheswar Kumar, secretary of basic education.
Meanwhile a para teachers’ collective has been pressing the state’s basic education minister to expedite the process. “Since last December we have been told that appointment letters will be issued soon. There seems to be a lack of seriousness on the part of the government to expedite the process. The massive vote against the SP in the general election is a reminder to the state government to fulfill its promises to the teachers’ community,” says Satendar Mishra, coordinator of the collective.
Meanwhile as the leisurely process of filling teacher vacancies winds its way through the courts and the state government’s bureaucratic maze, there seems to be little concern about the impact of the prolonged delay on the 34 million children struggling to avail half decent K-12 education in UP’s government schools.
Puja Awasthi (Lucknow)