Speeding of recruitment process to fill teachers posts: Lokesh

VIJAYAWADA: Education and IT minister Nara Lokesh has promised to fill teacher posts in Andhra Pradesh by speeding up the recruitments. “We will fill all the pending teacher vacancies,” he said and added that the government was committed to providing employment opportunities to the educated youths. "Some 3939 of the pending 4,534 posts from the 1998 DSC were already filled. The remaining 595 posts would be filled soon,” he said in the state assembly on Wednesday.

In response to a question from BJP MLA Vishnu Kumar Raju, regarding the posts for 1998 DSC-qualified candidates, the minister clarified that candidates appointed under the NTS (non-teaching staff) category will not be entitled to retirement benefits as per the rules. “The retirement age for these candidates is 60 years.” He said the matters raised by the members would be discussed with the chief minister and decisions would follow.

Lokesh said the TD governments had always treated education as their bounden responsibility. During the previous TD terms, 11 DSC exams were conducted and 1.5 lakh teacher posts were filled. Nine of those exams were held when Chandrababu Naidu was chief minister. Naidu's first signature this time, after assuming power, was on the Mega DSC file. At the request of candidates, the teacher eligibility test (TET) was conducted and soon, a fresh DSC notification would be issued, he said.

The education minister said the previous government did not fill even a single teacher post in the last five years. As the chairman of the employment sub-committee of the state cabinet, he said the government would plan and work towards providing 20 lakh jobs to youths in the next five years. “We have directed the officials to study the cases related to DSC thoroughly and ensure that there are no legal complications in future. The best possible DSC notification would be issued soon, and all the vacant teacher posts will be filled by next year,” he said.