While the Congress party is accusing the Haryana government of abolishing posts of about 20,000 teachers in the state-run schools, Education Minister Kanwar Pal, on Monday, said the state’s Education Department will “neither close any school nor will it abolish the posts of teachers.”

Terming the reports of closure of schools and abolishing the posts as baseless, Minister Kanwar Pal said that some schools with low student strength have been merged with the school within the nearest three-kilometer radius.

“The Education Department will neither close any school nor will it abolish the posts of teachers, but after these transfers, the posts which remain vacant will be filled through Kaushal Rozgar Nigam and through direct recruitment. Complaints and suggestions given by teacher organizations are also being considered,” he said.

On the rationalisation of teachers, the minister said there are many schools where the number of students is very less where teachers are taking only two periods in a day. He said that the Education Department is making efforts to take special care of the science faculty in these transfers so that science students also have an adequate number of teachers to teach them.

On the online transfer drive being run to overcome the shortage of teachers in schools, the Minister said that these transfers of teachers are being done to maintain teacher-student ratio as per the norms of the Right to Education Act norms.

The Minister said that the Education Department is executing the work regarding the transfer drive in a transparent and fair manner. “In some schools, the strength of teachers is not equivalent to the strength of students,” he said, adding that in view of this, the Education Department is trying to ensure that the prescribed student-teacher ratio is maintained in every school across the state.

Earlier, former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged that Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar led BJP-JJP government is pushing the state’s education system and the future of its children into darkness through rationalization and Chirag Scheme.

He alleged that there has been a severe shortage of staff in many schools of the state due to the new transfer policy of teachers. “Instead of filling vacant posts, the government is eliminating those posts and the relevant subjects from the schools,” Hooda said.

 “The government has so far abolished the posts of about 20,000 teachers, whereas the truth is that about 38,000 teachers’ posts are lying vacant in schools. Thousands of youth are waiting for the recruitment but this government is going to eliminate vacant posts without recruitment,” the Congress leader alleged.

Citing details procured under the RTI Act, the former CM said that from November 2014 to April 2022, this government has opened only eight new schools in the state and upgraded only 463 schools. While the government has so far closed a total of 196 schools, “three days ago, the government closed 105 more schools. The Congress government had made Haryana a hub of education,” he said on Saturday.

Haryana Chief Minister Khattar had earlier this month said that the State government is rationalizing teachers in schools. “We are working constantly to bring reforms in the system. The government is taking dedicated steps to help poor children. In the future, more reforms will be introduced in the education sector,” he had said.

Giving his reply during the Monsoon Session of the Haryana Assembly, the CM said that under ‘Chirag’ scheme, the government will give Rs 700 to private schools for children studying in Class I to Class V, while an amount of Rs 900 and Rs 1100 will be paid for the students studying in classes VI to VII and IX to XII respectively.

 “So far, around 300 schools have given their consent under this scheme and 2700 children have enrolled,” he informed.