The Telangana government is clear in its intentions to focus on strengthening schools in rural areas than the towns and cities, and that seems to be the intention behind conducting the Teachers Recruitment Test (TRT) based on 31 districts rather than the erstwhile 10 districts.
The government has recently issued a notification to fill up 8,792 vacancies showing highest vacancies in Sangareddy district (903), Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district (894), Vikarabad (820), Mahbubnagar (731), Jogulamba Gadwal (438), Nagarkurnool (385), Kamareddy (381) and Adilabad (293). These include Secondary Grade Teachers (SGT), School Assistants (SA) and Language Pandits and Physical Education Teachers.
Among the 8,972 vacancies announced, maximum vacancies are in SGT posts for which the Diploma in Education (D.Ed) holders are eligible.
While the rural districts got maximum SGT vacancies, urban areas were severely hit with just a few vacancies shown, and some of them in single digits. The issue has now landed in the courts with some aspirants questioning the criterion adopted.
For example, not a single SGT post is available in Warangal Urban and Khammam districts. Rajanna Sircilla, Warangal Rural and Jangoan have just one vacancy. Suryapet (8), Yadadri Bhongir (6), Peddapalli (5) are the other single digit districts. Districts like Siddipet (10), Mahabubabad (17), Karimnagar (29), Jagityal (31), Nalgonda (26), Nizamabad (98), Wanaparthy (83) have less than 100 posts.
The Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister, Kadiyam Srihari, however, defends the government’s move saying it wants to strengthen the rural schools and hence more recruitment in those areas. He says lot of urban candidates don’t prefer to go and work in rural areas once selected and the whole purpose of recruitment gets defeated.
The Chief Minister apparently thought of this aspect while deciding on recruitment for 31 districts. The government also feels that aspirants from urban districts can appear in rural districts in the 20% open vacancies in each district for all candidates across the State.
Mr. Srihari also expressed the government’s inability to allow D.Ed students completing the course in March 2018 to appear for the recruitment test as recruitment guidelines will not allow them as candidates need to complete their course at the time of the notification. “If we allow them, the entire recruitment may land in courts again,” he said.
Meanwhile, some aspirants have already approached the courts seeking recruitment based on the erstwhile 10 districts. They remind that the 10-district formula was adopted for other recruitments like Agriculture Officers done in the last couple of years by the government and how come the teacher aspirants are denied the same .