Over 1,600 posts vacant at NCERT as reliance on contractual staff continues

Responding to concerns over staffing gaps, the Ministry of Education stated that recruitment is a “continuous process” and that efforts are being made to fill vacancies in accordance with existing recruitment rules.

The largest round of permanent recruitment took place in 2023-24, with 96 academic and 194 non-academic employees appointed (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna/ representative)

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is functioning with more than half of its sanctioned posts lying vacant, according to data tabled in the Rajya Sabha on December 17. Of the total sanctioned strength of 2,844 posts across NCERT headquarters, regional institutes, and departments, only 1,219 positions are currently filled, leaving 1,625 posts vacant across Group A, B, and C categories.

This information was shared by the Ministry of Education in response to an unstarred question by Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam, which sought details on vacancies, contractual appointments, and permanent recruitment at NCERT over the last five years.

The data provided in Annexure-I shows significant shortfalls across all major NCERT units, including Ajmer, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Mysore, CIET, NERIE, and PSSCIVE. Several departments are operating with less than half their sanctioned strength.

In the Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET), for instance, only 45 out of 116 sanctioned posts across Group A, B and C are filled, while at NERIE, just 26 out of 55 posts are occupied.

The shortage is particularly acute in Group C posts, which form the backbone of administrative and technical support. Against a large sanctioned strength across units, the number of staff in position remains disproportionately low.

Overall, reserved category vacancies also remain substantial, with only 229 Scheduled Caste, 122 Scheduled Tribe, 274 OBC and 36 Persons with Disabilities posts currently filled across NCERT.

Even as permanent vacancies persist, NCERT has increasingly relied on contractual hiring. Annexure-II reveals that the organisation hired between 655 and 760 contractual employees every year since 2020-21. The highest number of contractual staff – 760 – were hired in 2022-23, followed by 746 in 2021-22. In 2024-25, 655 contractual employees were engaged.

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Permanent recruitment, however, has been uneven. No permanent appointments – academic or non-academic – were made in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Hiring resumed only in 2022-23, when 85 academic and one non-academic staff member were recruited.

The largest round of permanent recruitment took place in 2023-24, with 96 academic and 194 non-academic employees appointed. In 2024-25, the numbers dipped again, with 48 academic and 21 non-academic recruits.

Over the five-year period since 2020-21, NCERT has recruited a total of 229 academic and 216 non-academic permanent employees. Of the academic recruits, 68 belonged to the Scheduled Caste category, 35 to the Scheduled Tribes, 16 to the OBCs and 82 to the EWS category, with 28 persons appointed under horizontal reservation.

Among non-academic recruits, 113 were from the SC category, 21 ST, seven OBC and 61 EWS candidates.

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Responding to concerns over staffing gaps, the Ministry of Education stated that recruitment is a “continuous process” and that efforts are being made to fill vacancies in accordance with existing recruitment rules. However, the data indicates that NCERT continues to depend heavily on short-term contractual staff even as a large proportion of sanctioned posts remain unfilled.