NEW DELHI: The schools run by the Delhi government are set to get regular Urdu teachers after a gap of about four decades. A proposal to recruit permanent teachers for the language was given sanction after which the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) invited applications for Trained Graduate Teachers (TGT) in Urdu in June to fill up over 900 vacancies. The online exam for the same is scheduled next month.
Government officials aware of the matter said if all goes according to plan, the appointments could be finalised before the end of this year. “Hardly 50-60 Urdu teachers are left in schools. There has been no fresh recruitment since 1980s for Urdu teaching. As a stopgap arrangement, contract teachers were being sourced through Urdu Academy. They lacked required qualifications and competence. In fact, the school administration would not treat them as teachers.
They were only used for other responsibilities like election duties. Some complain that they are not given identity cards. We are hopeful that the schools will get quality teachers this time as the vacancies were open for all at national level,” said an official privy to the vacancy-sanctioning process.
Earlier, the government had issued advertisements to fill up 150 seats but didn’t succeed due to mandatory provision of the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET). There are nearly 1,100 government schools in the national capital. Urdu is being taught in nearly 280 schools and many of them face non-availability of trained educators.
The Urdu Academy in Delhi has also written to its counterparts in other states to give wide publicity to the job notification and encourage aspirants to take up the exam, said the official. Due to acute shortage of language teachers, Urdu is not taught as a third language in majority of the government-run schools in the city.
“Permanent Urdu teachers can help the growth of children in many ways. They can be used for other purposes; well-qualified people can be given training for counselling of children. Teachers may help students to complete formalities for scholarships being offered by the governments,” said the official.
Three-laNguage formula under NEP
Due to acute shortage of teachers, Urdu is not taught as a third language in majority of the schools while under the National Education Policy (NEP), students in Hindi-speaking states have an opportunity to learn a modern Indian language, besides Hindi and English. In Delhi government schools, Urdu along with Sanskrit and Punjabi are offered as third language