Odisha: Separate cadre for Plus II in offing

BHUBANESWAR: In order to give a fillip to school education and impart quality teaching, the Odisha Government has planned to create a separate cadre of teachers specially for Higher Secondary schools.
After the separation of Plus II and Plus III colleges, the former colleges, which were under the Higher Education Department, will now be known as Higher Secondary Schools.School and Mass Education Secretary Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said there will be totally a virgin cadre of Post Graduate Teachers (PGTs) for these schools.

“We are imparting teaching to students through the borrowed lecturers and readers from Higher Education Department. But once the cadre is formed, the senior lecturers will go back to their original posts,” he told ‘The Express’.   The School and Mass Education Department will soon frame the rules to recruit fresh teachers through the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) and Staff Selection Board (SSB).

Unlike the earlier process in which the teachers were being posted on mark selection basis, the recruitment of teachers now will be done through competitive examinations to ensure selection of quality teachers. “The recruitment of these teachers will start from June. While the teachers for Government and fully aided colleges will be recruited by OPSC, the recruitment for partially aided colleges will be done by SSB,” Mohapatra said. 

The Government has also planned to make the recruitment process online to maintain transparency besides the pupil and teacher ratio of 10:1. However, the lecturers will continue to teach till the recruitment is over. “We hope all higher secondary schools will have PGTs in next six months. The CBSE pattern will be implemented in all subjects of Plus II as we have been successful in the trial phase,” he added. 

Meanwhile, a road map has been prepared by the Department for implementation of Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital in Education (SATH-E) project following the direction from NITI Aayog.The projects aim at transforming elementary and secondary education across the State. The exercise, which involves an overall reforms to ensure quality education at primary and secondary levels, is expected to be completed by the end of 2020 academic year.