The Odisha government’s decision to recruit 20,000 junior teachers on the basis of annual agreements, in what is billed to be the biggest hiring drive ever, has triggered a controversy as the government had decided to abolish contractual recruitments. A notification issued by the school and mass education department said the engagement of junior teachers would continue to be done on the basis of annual agreements and that the appointments would be renewed in subsequent years depending on the teachers’ performance. In October last year, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced the abolition of the contractual recruitment system, a decision that helped the regularisation of the services of over 57,000 contractual employees in various departments. The department, however, sought to justify the decision stating that the recruitment of junior teachers would be under the central government’s Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan. So the teachers will be called “junior teachers (schematic)”, it said. “Despite the recruitment being done under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, our government has already relaxed the norms to regularise their services. The recruitment will be done after a gap of seven years and we hope to complete the process without any hindrance,” said school and mass education secretary Aswathy S. As per the existing practice, jobs of the junior teachers will be regularised after six years of service. The Odisha School Education Programme Authority, under the department, will soon advertise for the recruitment of 20,000 junior teachers at one go. An online computer-based test will be conducted by the authority or an authorised agency as per the syllabus mentioned in the advertisement to be published. District-wise and category-wise draft merit lists will be published on the authority’s website. The decision to engage teachers on the basis of annual agreements has not gone down well with everyone, with Opposition parties terming as eyewash the BJD government’s decision to abolish the contract system. BJP leader Surath Biswal said the government had lied to take credit as it was the old wine in a new bottle when it came to implementing the decision.“When you said that there will be no contractual recruitment system, why are the junior teachers being recruited on an annual agreement basis?” he said. Bijay Malla, who heads the Contractual Employees’ Association of Odisha and had fought for the abolition of the contract system, expressed displeasure over the recent decision. “It is unfortunate that the junior teachers will continue to be recruited based on schemes, even though the contractual appointment system has been abolished. Candidates with bachelor's degrees and diplomas in education who have already cleared the Teachers’ Eligibility Test will have to work with a monthly remuneration of Rs 11,000 for around six years,” Malla said.
