Centre to write to states over 5 lakh vacant primary teacher posts

NEW DELHI: With over five lakh posts of primary teachers lying vacant in government schools across the country, the HRD Ministry has decided to write to states requesting them to address this "serious issue" as early as possible.

"There are more than one lakh schools today which are manned by only one teacher. The teacher vacancy is a serious issue. And we are requesting all states, because recruitment is done by state governments, that they should recruit as early as possible," HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar told PTI.

"Therefore, I am writing to Chief Ministers and we will have a conference of education ministers and this will be an important issues," he said.

Officials said that the ministry is laying special focus on the issue of vacancies in schools because without proper infrastructure and manpower, raising the quality of education would only be a distant dream.

"The real long term solutions can emerge only through proper coordination and focus," one of the officials said.

Earlier, in written reply to a question in Parliament, the HRD Ministry had said that over 5.56 lakh of the 33.08 lakh sanctioned posts of primary teachers in government schools across the country have been lying vacant.

Officials said that the Ministry was also looking at the vacancies in the higher education sector as well.