PATNA: State education minister Krishna Nandan Prasad Verma told the legislative council on Friday that the proposal to create vacancies for 19,502 posts of teachers was shelved after Article 6 and 8 of teachers’ recruitment policy was stayed by Patna high court on October 31, 2017. He said no recruitment policy for government school teachers exists at present.The minister said the matter was pending with Supreme Court (SC). “The SC’s judgment on this issue and ‘equal pay for equal work’ of contractual teachers is expected to come soon . After the SC’s judgement, the education department will create new recruitment policy to end scarcity of teachers in government schools,” he said.Replying to a question raised by Saran MLC Birendra Narayan Yadav on the fifth day of council proceedings on Thursday, Verma had said in order to address the scarcity of teachers in government schools, the department temporarily hired 4,200 guest teachers for several subjects in 2018. “The department will soon hire 57 more guest teachers for the time being,” he said.Birendra and CPI MLC Kedarnath Pandey, however, said no guest teacher was hired in government schools at Chappra. “I had inspected several government schools in my constituency. There were 25 teachers in one school, but it had no mathematics teacher. Improper distribution of teachers in schools also led to scarcity of subject teachers,” said Pandey.Verma said he would direct the education department officials to look into the matter. Maximum questions were asked from the education minister. The questions were related to distribution of scholarship funds to school kids, encroachment on premises of schools, mid-day meal, student credit card scheme and utilisation of practical equipment in schools.The minister said, “Altogether 1,326 students in state have been selected for National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship. Of them, 1,244 have been fully authenticated. The department has been verifying the other qualified candidates. School education and literacy department, a unit of ministry of human resources development, had made it mandatory for applicants of 2018-19 to apply for scholarship through online portal.”

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