Despite efforts, computer teacher vacancies persist in govt secondary schools
According to the central government’s guidelines, teachers were to be appointed with an honorarium of ₹25,000 per month.
PRAYAGRAJ: Despite efforts initiated around 10 months ago at the state level, government secondary schools in Uttar Pradesh have been unable to secure computer teachers even on a contractual basis. In the financial year 2022-23, a budget provision was made to hire computer teachers on an outsourced basis through the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) — a Government-owned national public procurement portal — in 890 government-run secondary schools across the state’s 75 districts.
According to the central government’s guidelines, teachers were to be appointed with an honorarium of ₹25,000 per month. A meeting held on January 27, 2023, at the state project office of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, Lucknow, aimed to select a service provider for the task. However, as of now, no computer teachers have been appointed, according to officials from the state secondary education department.
Principals of affected schools argue that the absence of teachers makes it impractical to include modern topics such as hacking, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), drone technology, and others in the computer studies curriculum of the UP Board.
Earlier, the Prayagraj-headquartered Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) had invited applications to fill 1673 vacant posts of computer teachers in the LT Grade (Assistant Teacher) Recruitment of 2018, but only 36 teachers were selected.
The process of appointing computer teachers in government schools has been ongoing for the past seven years. The Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Education (Trained Graduate Category) Service (Fourth Amendment) Rules 2016, approved in the state cabinet meeting in October 2016, included a provision for the recruitment of computer teachers for the first time.
Despite publishing advertisements for the recruitment of computer teachers and other subjects, the process initiated in 2016 could not be completed. In 2018, when the UPPSC started the process, 1637 out of 1673 posts remained vacant.
District inspector of schools (DIoS)-Prayagraj PN Singh confirmed that over 30 government secondary schools in Prayagraj district alone currently lack computer teachers.
Govt aided colleges also grappling with computer teacher vacancies
Students from 4,512 government-aided secondary schools in the state are awaiting computer teachers. The proposal to appoint computer teachers in these institutions was submitted to the state government in 2022 by the Directorate of Secondary Education. At that time, it was suggested that the responsibility of computer teaching could be assigned to teachers of previously approved subjects that have since become irrelevant, either by providing them with necessary training or by hiring computer teachers on a contract basis. However, the institutions’ principals assert that approval for this has not been received to date.
