Madhya Pradesh Govt To Recruit 60,000 Teachers This Year: PM Modi

Addressing a teachers training programme in Madhya Pradesh, PM Modi has said that the MP Government has set a target to hire 60,000 teachers this year.

Madhya Pradesh Teachers Recruitment (Representational Image)

The Madhya Pradesh government aims to hire a total of one lakh government employees this year. Out of the total recruitment, 60,000 teachers are to be hired, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while addressing a Teachers' Training Programme in Madhya Pradesh via video conferencing today, April 12, 2023. The announcement is seen as a major step by the MP government to not only empower its youth with better job prospects but also to revamp the education infrastructure in the state. 

Notably, in the past few months several reports have notified severe shortage of teachers across several states in the country including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and others. As per various government sources, the shortage of teachers is significant at the elementary and secondary education levels. 

As per Lok Sabha and media reports, close to 1.2 lakh schools across the country in different states are being run by single teachers. The student-teacher ratio is severely poor in states like Bihar (one teacher for 60 students), and Delhi (one teacher for 40 students), at the primary level. In terms of one-school teachers, Madhya Pradesh sat on the top of the chart with 16,630 such schools, as of February 2023. 

North-Eastern states like Assam have also been grappling with the shortage of teachers. Recently, discussions in the Assam assembly revealed that the state was facing a severe shortage of teachers with around 3,000 schools run by single teachers. To address the shortage of teachers, several states have also started gearing up to hire teachers and reform their education system. 

Recently, the Bihar government announced new teacher recruitment rules, paving way to address the long-due shortage of teachers in the state. The Bihar government has called for the appointment of a new commission to recruit teachers in the state. In a similar move, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has announced the formation of a new ‘Unified Commission’ to hire teachers in the state at all levels.