THE government and private schools and colleges are facing setback due to shortages of teachers and quality teachers in particular. It is seriously affecting our education system. According to media reports, vacancies at the country’s primary and secondary schools and colleges remained unfulfilled over the years. The ministries of Education and Primary and Mass Education are responsible for failing to recruit teachers to fill up over 1.05 lakh vacancies. If this disastrous scarcity of teachers continues in absence of recruitment it may eventually threaten to undermine government’s efforts to ensure universal access to primary education and quality education at all levels.
Report said that Primary, Secondary schools and Colleges across the country have shortage of teachers. It said that more than 60,000 vacancies exist at government primary schools, 40,000 at non-government secondary schools and intermediate colleges, 3,475 vacancies at government colleges and 2,250 vacancies at government run secondary schools. This is very alarming for ensuring quality education in the country. It is also surprising as report said in many rural schools only two teachers are teaching at primary schools with several hundred students. The shortage of teachers is not unknown to the concerned ministries and departments but there is no visible improvement in the situation. It is true the government has given the utmost priority to develop education sector by allocating big budgets, but this harsh reality of teachers’ deficit is not easily understood.
The only recruitment organization for public colleges – the Public Service Commission (PSC) cannot recruit adequate number of teachers in government colleges for various reasons. It is not the failure of the PSC. Rather, lack of government’s good intension is widely blamed for less recruitment. The same is true for recruitment of teachers at other levels.
Moreover, local MPs and other politically influential persons allegedly demand big amount of money from those who want to be recruited as teachers at schools or colleges complicating the recruitment process. Many of the previously recruited teachers haven’t the merit for being good teachers because of faulty recruitment compromising the standard. Many were recruited on political basis proving unfit to be good at teaching.
It will not bring any good to our education system without recruiting adequate number of teachers. We must overcome the hurdles and moreover recruit quality teachers to address the growing crisis.
