Teaching jobs in Bihar government schools has now been thrown open to all Indians as the state cabinet on Tuesday removed the domicile status as one of the eligibility criteria by amending the new teacher recruitment rules it had brought earlier this year.
The decision to this effect was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Nitish Kumar here on Tuesday.
This proposal was mooted before the cabinet by the state education department.
Earlier, there was a provision to recruit only Bihar residents as teachers in state government-run schools under the new service conditions — Bihar state school teachers (appointment, transfer, disciplinary action, and service condition) rules, 2023.
“Now, there will be no domicile-based reservation for recruitment of teachers in state government-run schools. Any Indian citizen can apply for government teacher job and it is not binding that he or she should have a Bihar domicile. This decision was taken by the state cabinet today,” S Siddharth, additional chief secretary (cabinet secretariat), told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
The whole matter is also pending before the Patna high court, where a number of petitions have been filed against the new recruitment rules under which all future appointments of school teachers will be carried out by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) through an examination. The next hearing is due in the first week next month.
The latest amendment may also lead to extension in the last date for submission of application forms, which is July 12.
On June 15, the BPSC had started the process for online submission of applications for 1.75 lakh vacancies in secondary and higher secondary schools, though nearly four lakh working teachers have decided not to associate with the process, demanding that they be given the status of government employees without any exam rider due to their old service.
The government has categorically said that all fresh appointments of school teachers would be done through the BPSC and only those clearing the exam will have the government employee status.
The existing lot of teachers, appointed through panchayati raj institutions and urban local bodies since 2006, will also need to take the BPSC exam for upgrade as government employees, else they will get pay hike but not the status as the new lot.
“As the existing lot of teachers have stayed away from the recruitment process, the number of applicants fulfilling the laid down requirements is not very high. The candidates having already qualified the teacher eligibility test and waiting for appointment for the last four years have also moved the court separately,” said former MP Shatrughan Prasad Singh, who is currently the president of the Bihar Secondary Teachers’ Association.
“Besides, the domicile restrictions anyways could not have stand the scrutiny of law. The Jharkhand high court had earlier rejected the state government’s similar notification on its domicile policy. Besides, the poor pay scale compared to other states is a big deterrent for talented candidates even from Bihar, leave alone those from other states,” Singh said.
