GUWAHATI, May 18 - The government-run secondary schools in the State, which showed mixed results in the recently announced HSLC results, are now suffering from staff crunch in various grades. The situation was revealed by some documents of the education department about the recent staff strength in government secondary school in 21 plain districts of the State. These documents were obtained through the Right to Information Act, 2005.
According to these documents, in the grade of principal, against the cadre strength of 504 posts, altogether 54 posts still remain vacant in various secondary schools.
Among them, the highest number of nine posts remain vacant in Cachar district, followed by Barpeta and Nagaon districts with eight vacant posts in each of these districts.
The RTI information showed that only Bongaigaon, Dhemaji, Golaghat, Jorhat and Kamrup rural districts have no vacancy for the principal posts in secondary schools.
In the grade of vice-principal, against the total cadre strength of 501 posts, the documents showed altogether 500 vacancies across the State, whereas Dhubri district has only one vice principal engaged in one of its secondary schools.
In this grade, the highest 55 posts remain vacant in Nagaon district, followed by Sivasagar (39) and Barpeta (37) districts.
In the case of postgraduate teachers (PGT), against 6,004 cadre strength, altogether 1,166 posts still remain vacant across the State. The highest 150 PGT posts remain vacant in Nagaon district followed by Barpeta and Karimganj with 85 such vacancies in each of them.
Among those districts, against the 2,901 cadre strength in the grade of headmaster, there are 878 vacant posts. Barpeta district topped this category with 105 posts followed by Lakhimpur (69) and Kamrup (63) districts.
In the grade of assistant headmaster, against the 803 cadre strength, the total vacancy is 215, whereas the highest 29 posts remain vacant in Sivasagar district followed by Cachar (27) and Kamrup (26) districts.
Among various secondary schools, against the total 487 cadre strength in the grade of demonstrator, the RTI information stated that till now, 174 posts are yet to be filled by the state education department. Among them, the highest 22 posts remain vacant in Nagaon district followed by Barpeta (18) and Sonitpur (17) districts.
Despite those teaching staff, several non-teaching staff's posts also remain vacant in various secondary schools, the RTI information revealed.
Among them, in the grade of senior assistant, against the cadre strength of 855 posts, altogether 179 posts are lying vacant. The highest number of posts lying vacant in this category are in Cachar and Nagaon districts.
In the grade of junior assistant, against the total cadre strength of 3,872 posts, the total number of vacancies is 750. The highest number of vacant posts in this category are lying in Kamrup district (82) followed by Barpeta (76) and Sivasagar (64) districts.
Again, in the grade four category, against the total cadre strength of 8,105 posts, altogether 2,014 posts remain vacant in various schools.
In this grade, the highest number of posts (215) have been lying vacant in Nagaon district followed by Barpeta (187) and Sivasagar (169) districts.
Those documents further stated that from 2016 to February this year, the state government has made 2,712 appointments in various secondary schools across Assam.
Those appointments were for 478 principal posts, 752 post-graduate teacher posts, 554 headmaster posts, 128 assistant headmaster posts, 514 assistant teacher posts, 151 junior assistant posts and 135 grade IV posts, but no appointments were given for the grade of vice-principal.
Meanwhile, the RTI information stated the process to appoint assistant teachers in secondary schools of the State still remains pending due to the court case filed by a section of contractual teachers.
