Education Dept. fails to appoint teachers

Jalandhar : The state Education Department has failed to appoint scores of lecturers and master- cadre teachers, whose counselling had taken place about six months ago. Counselling for over 3,500 posts of teachers of science, mathematics, humanities and the languages stream was conducted by the department in July. In the advertisement published in the newspapers on July 10, it was promised that it would take not more than six months to issue appointment letters to the eligible candidates. However, the aspiring candidates are still being kept in the dark by the department as it has failed to make even a single such appointment even after the expiry of the six-month deadline. Sources said counselling was done to fill 513 and 3,638 vacant posts of lecturer and master cadre in the government secondary schools in the state. “We are uncertain about our future. Apprehension prevails among the candidates that the proposal to recruit teachers would ultimately meet a dead end,” said a candidate, who appeared for the counselling.

This despite the appalling standards of education in the rural areas as thousands of posts of lecturer and master-cadre teacher are lying vacant in the state. Sadhu Singh Randhawa, Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI), Elementary, who heads the selection committee (Male) constituted by the department for the recruitment process, said the appointments had not been made as there was a dearth of eligible candidates even after counselling. “We did not find the required number of eligible candidates in about 11 categories after counselling was held in July. We had again invited a few more candidates of these categories to submit their documents. The scrutiny of documents is going on and the appointments will be done in the coming weeks,” said Randhawa.