17% of teaching posts in govt schools vacant

NEW DELHI: A total of 17.1% of the teaching posts in government schools are lying vacant at present. In terms of absolute number, the largest vacancies are in Bihar (2.7 lakh) followed by Uttar Pradesh (2.1 lakh). Percentage-wise Sikkim with 57.5% vacancies has the highest vacancies, followed by Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Replying to a written question at the Lok Sabha on Saturday, Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said: “The recruitment of teachers is a continuous process and the vacancies keep arising due to retirement and additional requirements on account of enhanced students’ strength.Education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution. The recruitment, service conditions and deployment of teachers come under the purview of the concerned State/UT Government.”
As per the data released by the ministry, there are six states with more than 20% vacancies which include Jharkhand (40.1%), Bihar (39.9%), Uttar Pradesh (28.8%), Uttarakhand (24.3%) and Chhattisgarh (21.7).
There are a total of 61.8 lakh sanctioned posts in government schools in the country of which there are 10.6 lakh posts lying vacant as of 2020-21 academic session. Among the states which have the lowest number of vacancies include Mizoram (no vacancy), Maharashtra (0.8%), Tamil Nadu (1.4%), Punjab (2.2%), Gujarat (2.6%), Nagaland (2.7%) and Kerala (2.8%). Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Odisha and Meghalaya too have vacancy percentage lower than 5%.
There are 10 states that have vacancies between 11.1% and 19.5%, which include Madhya Pradesh (19.5%), Jammu and Kashmir (16.6%), Karnataka (14.2%), Andhra Pradesh (14.1%), Manipur (13%), Telangana (12.7%), Rajasthan (11.6%), West Bengal (11.3%) and Delhi (11.1%).