First test of Nitish-Tejashwi job promise, aspirant teachers on the road

Now that Nitish and Tejashwi have joined hands to form their government again, they

know that fulfilling the promise about providing jobs must be on top of their agenda.

Of Bihar’s unemployed youth, teacher job aspirants were particularly happy with Nitish’s announcement.

The Nitish government completed the sixth phase of teachers’ niyojan (registration) earlier this year, appointing about 42,000 teachers for class 1 to class 8. The education department had also announced that its seventh phase would get underway by July 2022.

As per education department sources, the seventh phase could involve filling the vacancies of about 1.4 lakh teachers, which would be a major push for employment generation with other state government departments hardly coming up with any recruitment drive.

All those candidates, who have qualified in the 2012 and the 2017 Bihar Elementary Teachers Eligibility Test (BTET), conducted by the state government, or the Central Teachers Eligibility Test (CTET), conducted by CBSE, along with the B.Ed degree or a diploma in elementary education (D.El.Ed.) would be eligible to apply for teachers’ jobs in the state.

This is why the seventh phase of teachers’ niyojan assumes huge significance among the job aspirants. With the aspirants apparently not getting a “concrete assurance” from the new government about the pending seventh phase of teachers’ niyojan and fresh appointments, they stepped up their protests in Patna Monday that led to a police lathi-charge on them in which over a dozen protesters suffered minor injuries.

The onus is now especially on Tejashwi as the RJD has got the education portfolio for its Madhepura MLA Prof Chandra Shekhar. It is for the first time Nitish has conceded the education department to his ally ever since he became the CM in 2005.

The teacher job aspirants, who have been sitting on a serial dharna at Patna’s Gardanibagh for a month,

decided to continue their agitation even after the new government took charge on August 10.

Chandra Shekhar had reportedly given a “lukewarm response” to the protesting aspirants

when they met him last week. Following the police action on the protesters, things might worsen for Nitish and Tejashwi if they delay the seventh phase of teachers’ niyojan, which the protesters want to be rolled out immediately.

Explaining why these contractual teachers’ vacancies are important for the aspirants, the Bihar TET Teachers Association’s president Amit Vikram said: “We are fine with existing contractual position with retirement age of 60 years and starting salary of Rs 22,000 per month (basic salary of 16,000 per month) with annual increment of seven per cent DA. After two years of probation, a teacher gets 32,000 per month. Though we unsuccessfully fought for parity of salary with government teachers, it is alright for one to have over Rs 30,000 per month when there are hardly any jobs to come by in government sector.”

On his part, Tejashwi said: “Teacher job aspirants should have patience. The government has been working out modalities for the seventh phase of niyojan.”

The recruitment of teachers as “siksha mitras” was started by the then Rabri Devi-led government in 2003, when they were given Rs 1,500 per month and an 11-month contract subject to renewal following performance appraisal.

After Nitish came to power in 2005, he extended the tenure of contractual teachers to the age of 60 years. They are however still not on par with regular government teachers.

Between 2007 and 2012, about 2.5 lakh panchayat teachers were appointed on the basis of their marks in class 10, class 12 and graduation. But this saw many fake marksheets with the appointing authorities, mukhiyas, often getting their people recruited as teachers. The state vigilance department has continued to probe thousands of cases of these fake marksheets.

After drawing criticism over this exercise, the Nitish government introduced the TET

in 2011, whose results were announced in 2012. It was then valid only for five years, but in 2021 the government extended its validity for lifetime.