Karnataka Govt announces recruitment of 10k guest teachers in schools

BENGALURU: The Primary and Secondary Education minister N Mahesh announced the list of 10,000 guest teachers to be recruited in government schools on Tuesday. “We don’t want the quality of education to drop in schools due to non-availability of teachers and these guest teachers will be sufficing until the permanent teachers are recruited,” he said.

He also said that some of the teachers might be required only for one month and some may continue for the 10-month long academic year. There are 22,501 vacancies for the post in government schools in the state already. In total, the government plans to recruit 25,000 teachers. These guest teachers will automatically be out of service once the permanent teachers are recruited.

“The department had proposed recruitment of permanent teachers long ago but the Model Code of Conduct prevented the government to approve it. Now with the academic sessions starting, we must have the guest teachers to fill on. The process for recruitment of guest teachers will take about a month while it might take about three months or more to recruit the permanent teachers. Guest teacher is a solution for the mean time,” he added.

The government is hiring teachers in 1:2 ratio—which means two teachers for one vacant post and sending the list of teachers to Department of Public Instructions (DPI) for the final section process. “We are selecting two teachers per post, anticipating objections or litigations if any, from individual candidate. The final list of one teacher for one post will be published on July 29. A last round of counseling with candidates will be done by August 5 and they will be given the joining letter on spot. The teachers can join duty within 15 days from the day of receiving the joining letter,” Mahesh explained.

The vacancy of primary teachers (for which graduation is the minimum eligibility) for sixth to eighth grade in 2017 was highest in Kalaburgi—1153, followed by Raichur (952) and Bidar (929).