Nitish plans fresh round of teacher hirings before poll

Ahead of the Assembly poll later this year, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday asked the Education Department to lay the ground for the fourth instalment of the Teacher Recruitment Exam (TRE) by the Bihar Public Service Commission.

“I have instructed the Education Department to immediately count the vacancies for teachers in government schools and take action to conduct the TRE-4 examination for appointments as soon as possible,” he posted on X.

In January, Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary had announced that more than 80,000 teachers will be recruited in the fourth phase of TRE and with around 20,000 posts being carried over from TRE-3, the total number of vacancies will touch 1 lakh.

Mr. Kumar’s instructions on Wednesday come on the back of a renewed push for job creation with polls on the horizon. On Tuesday, the Bihar Cabinet gave its nod for the creation of 1 crore jobs and ‘employment opportunities’ in the State over the next five years. The Chief Minister had recently also announced that over 10 lakh youth and 39 lakh people overall have been provided government jobs.

‘Election slogan’

Reacting to the Chief Minister’s announcement, Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesperson Chitaranjan Gagan termed it “a mere election slogan”.

“He is still asking for vacancies from the Education Department when the government already has the data. More than 3 lakh teacher posts are vacant in Bihar. If the Chief Minister’s intentions are clear, he should immediately issue a notification for recruitment with domicile and start the process of recruitment,” Mr. Gagan said, predicting that the process will get stuck in the model code of conduct likely to be imposed when the Election Commission announces dates for the Assembly election.