BY A GT REPORTER
PANJIM, JULY 21: Aiming to be a Grade I teacher and you aren’t armed with BEd degree? Don’t worry, you are always welcome to Govt-run higher secondary schools, for, they don’t insist on one. But contrary to its flexibility in its teaching institutions, mandatory are the norms laid by it for aided schools.
Picture this: In a shocking revelation, it has come to light that the State’s education department has one set of rules to recruit teachers in its own higher secondary schools and another for employing teachers in aided, private schools.
The government is likely to appoint a significant number of teachers to regular posts in Government Higher Secondary Schools, shockingly without the BEd qualification.
The teachers have been selected despite the Goa Public Service Commission (GPSC) having instructed the Directorate of Education to amend the recruitment rules for appointment of ‘Teacher Grade I’ and make the education degree (BEd) compulsory for selection of higher secondary teachers.
But what went wrong in the process of changing the recruitment rules, the Directorate of Education is yet to officially reveal.
The Department had advertised for 60 posts of ‘Teacher Grade I’ in different subjects to be filled up through the GPSC in December 2008.
“What is the fate of teachers without BEd in the classroom? It’s like the fate of a doctor in the operation theatre without surgical equipments,” said one senior teacher in the government’s employ for decades.
Every selection of Teacher Grade I in any subject in the aided higher secondary schools makes the BEd qualification compulsory, he said.
It is learnt that these ‘unqualified’ teachers were likely to step into the positions of teachers who were promoted on adhoc basis as higher secondary teachers, all of who have vast teaching experience and have obtained excellent results for several years. But unfortunately they were deemed unsatisfactory at the interview and would be demoted as assistant teachers.
When contacted, a senior Directorate of Education official admitted on condition of anonymity, that such a lacuna does indeed exist in the recruitment rules.
The department is in the process of amending the recruitment rules, the official said, while refusing to come on record.
According to him, nobody took cognisance of this lacuna in the requirement rules since there was a stagnant number of only nine government higher secondary schools in Goa since 1976, while, aided higher secondary schools mushroomed since 1986.
The official also admitted that these lapses had affected the promotional prospects of qualified teachers. It is learnt that one senior teacher teaching a science subject at a Ponda school on completion of MA, was promoted as an English teacher in a higher secondary school at Panjim, bypassing English teachers, who have seen no promotion come their way for over two decades.
Some teachers complained that they are not promoted in subject-wise categories, even as they were appointed subject-wise at the time of initial recruitment.
