Teachers’ association writes to CM Siddaramaiah for approval of guest teachers in govt schools

The association in its letter to the chief minister said, “The new academic year will begin on May 29 and there are more than 50,000 vacant posts of teachers in primary schools and more than 10,000 in high schools. Just like the previous academic year, this year too we request you to provide guest teachers to government schools so that it doesn’t impede the academic process.”

Meanwhile, Ritesh Kumar Singh, principal secretary of the school education department, said that (around 40,000) guest teachers are already being recruited before the academic year begins. “The same guest teachers of the previous academic year will be recalled for the new academic year. The process has already begun. They will be ready by June,” said Singh.

The state government’s teacher recruitment process for Graduate Primary School Teachers position got entangled in legal and bureaucratic complexities due to the department’s eligibility guidelines.

The ordeal began with the recruitment process initiated by the previous government in March 2022 by inviting applications for GPST positions across the state. Competitive examinations followed in May, culminating in the announcement of a final selection list in March 2023, comprising 13,352 candidates.

However, the transition of power prompted procedural changes wherein selected candidates were called for counselling under the new government with postings designated accordingly. But, a sudden requirement for a ‘Sindhutva certificate’ caught many off guard, leading to delays as over 1,300 candidates scrambled to obtain the necessary documentation.

The candidates who had applied for such certificates were forced to wait citing election preparation and other reasons by their district level officials. Meanwhile, by the time most of them obtained the certificate and submitted the same to the DDPI to get the order copy, a petition was filed in the court and a stay order was brought in the backdrop of complaints over the issue that married women were excluded from the selection list on the contention that they submitted their father’s caste-cum-income certificate instead of their spouse’s.

Over 11,494 candidates of the final list had already collected their order copy from the respective DDPIs and had even joined the duty. However, 1,377 candidates were still in the process of getting the order but 481 women of the total 13,352 who fell under the married woman category knocked the doors of the court which put a stay on the process.

While the Supreme Court hearing the case recently modified its stay order and allowed Karnataka government to appoint 11,494 graduate primary teachers and observed that if married women candidates do not qualify for appointment on strength of their parents’ income and caste certificate they would be considered in the general merit category on basis of their overall merit.