10% quota for upper caste to impact recruitment of state govt teachers most

The fact that upper caste poor find it easier to get teaching jobs than any other form of govt employment is likely to disrupt the recruitment process more in this sector than in any other

Nothing else will be impacted as much by the additional 10 per cent reservation for the upper caste poor in government jobs, as the process of recruiting teachers in state government-run schools. There are no other cohorts, including those trying to get into para medical services, for whom recruitment under the new quota will create a comparable influence. 

This is because the number of jobs available in central government are static across all levels, ranging from Group A officers (including the All-India Civil Services), down to the Group C (including secretarial and support staff). The annual additional recruitment to those posts does not exceed a hundred thousand each year, matched by those who retire or quit. 

The action for additional posts will play out instead, at the states, especially those in North India. In all of these domains, the most buoyant source of recruitment over the past few years has been that of teachers in both primary and secondary schools. As a World Bank report shows, this too is likely to be an understatement. Still, as the the data shows, by the end of 2017, vacancies for government teachers in these grades has reached almost one million, and is still climbing. 

A window for upper caste poor

Yet, the table also shows why, despite the rising trend of recruitment of teachers, the angst among the forward castes may have risen. Their representation as tutors is not substantial. State governments so far, for obvious reasons of social justice, have picked more teachers from socially deprived communities, the data shows. It is this which is likely to be challenged. The headroom available to expand employment under the new quota varies widely across the states.

Recruitment to all other posts in states has been anaemic in comparison. These have rarely exceeded half a million a year. Also, most of them demand levels of qualifications which the poorer segments of upper castes find difficult to satisfy—they are the segments the 10 per cent additional quote expects to cater to. For instance, there is a mounting need for para medical staff too (estimated at least two hundred thousand as per data with the ministry of health and family welfare), yet the supply is constrained by the availability of institutions which can train them and the inability of the upper caste candidates to qualify for those too. In contrast, the institutes for teacher training outnumber the nursing colleges 3:1. 

Vacancies for non-teaching jobs that do not demand stiff pre-qualifications are mired in other problems. For instance, of the total vacancies for the post of police constables across India of about 12,000 in 2018, a quarter was for recruitment in only one state, Uttar Pradesh.  While the state needs far larger number of police personnel, the recruitment exam has been deferred several times due to all sorts of complaints, many of which are in courts.

In the case of recruitment of teachers, there is an additional advantage because of the asymmetrical treatment of expenditure on them under government accounts. While the wage bill for police force comes under revenue expenditure, that for teachers is shown as closer to capital expenditure. This makes states willing to accommodate more teachers on their rolls or as contract teachers. Audit reports are often scathing about the lack of teachers in government schools. So while most states find they have little to spend on buildings for school or even on equipments for the students once they have paid the monthly wage bills for their teachers, they are happy to play along. 

Contractual versus regular

The phenomena of hiring contract teacher is itself an example of this trend. The bulge in the ranks of contract teachers began after the Sarva Shikhsha Abhiyan, a plan scheme was rolled out since 2002. They are employed for a fixed term with a fixed wage, few annual leaves and most important earn no pension. The ratio between them and regular teachers is 1:2 according to the ministry of human resource development (Educational Statistics At a Glance, 2017) Bihar terms them as niyojit shikshaks. Uttar Pradesh terms them as shiksha mitra or assistant teachers. But almost all the states employ such teachers to fill up posts in the rapidly expanding school network in India. Their funding comes from Sarva Shikha Abhiyan, a centrally sponsored scheme, which makes them productive expenditure.

Of course, this compromised on quality. A World Bank study shows the percentage of trained teachers in primary education in India is only 70 per cent of the total number. And as it has also found that the training is often inadequate.

Yet, recruits for these posts see themselves differently. They envision the posts as a bridge to lifetime employment as regular teachers. This is why these jobs too are prized. There are often court cases or agitations by those who fail to make the cut. In Jharkhand, for instance, in November 2018 there was a violent agitation by who are known as para teachers. There are about 67,000 such para teachers in the state, according to local media estimates. These teachers went on strike demanding regularisation of their service as government teachers. The situation worsened so much that the state school administration department had to issue orders to district magistrates not to send regular teachers to the schools in the absence of these para teachers, to teach students. They could be beaten up. So the department directed the districts to advise the schools to “hire educated persons from the school management committees” to fill in for the para teachers. 

Taken everything together, at the end of 2018, teachers on contract or on regular employment form the largest legion of state government employees in most states. As the table shows, the trend will only deepen. Most states have advertised gargantuan vacancies for the posts of teachers. Those are already close to one hundred and fifty thousand at the end of 2018. And forward castes will possibly get a larger share of this pie.

The road ahead

After the union department of personnel and training issued orders on January 19, setting the cut-off date of February 1, 2019, post which the 10 per cent quota will set in, the state governments have begun to work to bring out corresponding orders. The date for the cut-off is expected to be the same. So all advertisements for teachers are expected to be reissued under the new guidelines. “Some methods will clearly have to be devised to issue them afresh,” said a former secretary in the union government.