Bhubaneswar, Aug 30: After the Odisha’s School and Mass Education Department announced its ‘teacher-on-call’ policy in order to fill vacancies in secondary schools of the state, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan criticized it and urged the State Government against treating teachers as if they were “taxi-on-call service OLA or Uber”. School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra, on the other hand, clarified the government’s viewpoint.
Even though the retired teachers are by and large happy with this optional employment, some of the teachers’ organisations along with opposition parties are opposing this scheme.
Notably, on August 23 the State Government made an announcement to engage retired secondary school teachers aged between 60 and 65 years on a contractual basis starting 2016-17 academic year. The teachers are expected to work at least 20 days a month for a fixed remuneration of Rs 10,000.
Explaining the decision, Minister Mishra had said that there are over 10,000 vacancies in teacher posts at the secondary school level and lengthy appointment process, pending court cases and unavailability of teachers belonging to SC and ST categories made matter worse forcing the government to take such a decision.
