Govt to recruit 44,433 elementary school teachers

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government in a significant move towards enhancing education system in the state, is planning the recruitment of school teachers in the government run schools. On the lines, a meeting was conducted to address the issues relating to provision of adequate Teachers in the state on Saturday.

The School and Mass Education Department, Government of Odisha held a meeting chaired by the Commissioner-cum Secretary including the Directors, senior officers from the department and representatives from Finance Department and Law Department.

Discussions on the following were done:

A. Recruitment of Assistant Teachers (regular) in the elementary cadre instead of Junior teachers (Schematic):

A Junior Teacher (Schematic) becomes eligible to be a Junior Teacher after three years of continuous and satisfactory service. A Junior Teacher after three years of such service is absorbed as Regular Assistant Teacher Level-V (A) in elementary cadre. These 6 years of service is co-terminus with that of Scheme till their absorption in the regular Elementary cadre.

While all other cadre teachers i.e. Secondary and Higher Secondary teachers are bring recruited as regular teachers from base level of the cadres as the Govt discontinued the contractual appointment policy in all departments.

After detailed discussion on the above matter, the followings were recommended by the members: –

1. The teacher continuing presently as Junior Teacher (Schematic)/Junior Teacher should become regular teacher as on date of issue of Notification in this regard.

2. The contractual/ Schematic period of all teachers in Elementary Schools should be counted for their qualifying service towards retirement benefit. They should not claim arrear financial benefit for their contractual/ Schematic period.

3. Irrespective of the date of regularization, they should be allowed seniority as per the merit list in their year of recruitment and will continue to be senior to the teachers recruited in subsequent batches /year of recruitment.

4. For regularization of the Junior Teacher (Schematic)/Junior Teachers mentioned at Para-1 above, corresponding regular posts in different categories observing ORV Rules should be created.

5. All future recruitment of Elementary Teachers should be on regular mode.

B. Creation of teacher posts:

RECOMMENDATION:
It was decided to provide teachers as per the norm of RTE, Act 2009 for quality education in the State. Apart from this, the additional requirement for Shishu Vatika is also to be taken into account while calculating the requirement of teachers. Accordingly, it was seen that the following additional post of teachers are required to be created in the State:

As depicted in the table above, a total of 44,433 Elementary teachers should be recruited. The committee recommended for phase-wise appointment of these teachers in order to ensure quality of education and meet the goals of Viksit Odisha 2036.

C. Recruitment of Teachers for Multilingual Education (MLE):

RECOMMENDATIONS: –

1. The provision of MLE teachers may be expanded to all Districts in the State instead of limiting to 17 districts only.

2. The recruitment may be made for teachers covering proficiencies in 21 tribal languages i.e. Santali, Saura, Koya, Kui, Kuvi, Kishan, Oram, Mundari, Juanga, Bonda, Gadaba, Ho, Gondi, Paroja, Kharia, Didayi, Bhinjhal, Paudi Bhuiyan, Bhumia, Bhatra and Bhunjia which are now operational in the State.

3. MLE teachers may be recruited in the cadre of elementary teacher and should prosses all requisite qualification of elementary teachers with the additional qualification having proficiency in the specified MLE language.

4. The requirement of MLE Teachers may be finalized by OSEPA taking inputs from Directorate Elementary Education (DEE) and Directorate Secondary Education (DSE). Language wise and District wise requirement may be done by calculating enrolment of ST students in schools under the School and Mass Education Department and coverage of ST students in schools under the ST-SC Development Department, when working out the requirement.

5. The recruitment of MLE teachers as per the requirement may be done in a phased manner. In the first phase it is recommended for recruiting of about 10,000 teachers with MLE qualification.

D. Recruitment of Special Educators:

RECOMMENDATIONS: –
After due discussion on the above matter the followings were recommended for consideration and approval:
1. Given the widespread distribution of children with special need across the State, maintaining this ratio at the individual school level presents significant challenges. Therefore, support will be provided at the cluster level through the deployment of Special Educators, in accordance with the prescribed teacher-pupil ratio norms.

2. There are currently 4,806 clusters across the State. At present, 572 Block Resource Persons (BRPs) and 74 Special Education qualified teachers are in position. To meet the remaining requirement, a total of 4,160 Special Educators will be appointed over a span of two years.

For the academic year 2025-26, the appointment of 1,264 Special Educators has been approved in the Project Approval Board (PAB) meeting. The remaining 2,896 Special Educators can be recruited in the 2026-27 academic year.

E. (i) Unfreezing Remuneration of OSEPA employees:

RECOMMENDATIONS:
After a detailed discussion on the above matter, keeping in mind the legal and financial aspects of the issue, the following recommendations were made:
1. In the matter of implementation of to the orders of the Hon’ble High Court, Orissa passed in the aforesaid case, it was recommended to move the file to Law Department for obtaining views in this regard for further necessary action.
2. The Bye-Laws of OSEPA are to be revisited for necessary rectification, as per the opinion of the Finance Department and necessary amendments can be done accordingly, so that further litigation is avoided.

E. (ii) Exclusion of 13% employer share of EPF contribution from the consolidated remuneration of Block level employees

RECOMMENDATION: –
After due discussion the following recommendations were made: –

The 13% EPF employer share contribution should be calculated over and above the revised base remuneration from the consolidated remuneration of Block level employees. The additional financial burden may be borne by the State Government under the head of “State Support to Samagra Sikhya”.
It was decided that the above recommendations would be submitted for approvals at appropriate levels.