80,000 Posts Lie Vacant in Non-Govt Edn Institutions

The Non-Government Teachers Registration and Certification Authority (NTRCA) is moving to recruit teachers against about 80,000 vacancies in MPO-listed non-governmental education institutions stuck in legal entanglements.

Source at NTRCA said they compiled a list of approximately 80,000 vacancies in private schools, colleges, madrasas and technical education institutions across the country to publish advertisements seeking applications from NTRCA certificate holders for appointment.

However, the NTRCA cannot initiate the appointment process against the vacancies of the teachers in the institutions due to legal complications.

According to the NTRCA, a list of 57,360 vacancies was compiled earlier in order to issue an advertisement for applications from eligible candidates for appointment. Later, the newly appointed chairman of NTRCA, Md Akram Hossain, held a meeting on 26 August with all district education officers and sought a list of new vacant posts.

Later, the NTRCA got 22,000 more vacant posts.

The Authority had intended to hire teachers in two phases against 80,000 vacant places. Of them, 57,360 teachers will be appointed in the first round, accompanied by 22,000 active candidates for the 16th NTRCA Registration Exam.

However, the NTRCA cannot issue an advertisement to begin the recruitment process for teachers on the basis of a recent order of the High Court concerning the appointment.

In 2017, the High Court ordered the NTRCA to issue certificates to the candidates and to appoint the teachers making a merit list of successful candidates for the NTRCA registration exams.

Subsequently, NTRCA has drawn up a merit list and the authority is appointing teachers for the 'Manpower Structure Policy 2018' based on the merit list.

However, the High Court recently directed NTRCA to nominate successful candidates to the 13th Registration Exam directly and the order was released while the authority was preparing to publish an advertisement seeking applications for the appointment of teachers.

Following the apex court order, legal uncertainty is created as the court order is against the current NTRCA 'Manpower Structure Policy 2018.'

Talking to media, NTRCA Chairman Akram Hossain said: “We have a list of around 80,000 vacant posts of teachers at the non-government MPO-listed institutions. But we cannot publish advertisements to hire teachers due to the legal complexity.”

“The apex court ordered us to appoint the candidates who have passed the NTRCA 13th registration exam directly but if we will do it, many successful candidates from 1-15th registration exams will be deprived while it is contradictory with the existing appointment policy.”

"We will soon go to the court and make a petition in this regard. If the court sends us a clear order, we will be able to initiate the appointment process further," he added.

NTRCA sources announced that a total of 6,34,127 candidates earned certificates from NTRCA via the Teachers' Registration Certificate Exams from 1-15th Registration Exams.

Of them, the age of 1,00821 candidates is over 35 and they will not get the scope to be appointed to the institutions as per the existing policy.

However, the age of 2,88,000 candidates is now below 35 and some of them have already been appointed directly to different institutions.

Meanwhile, the job seekers who earlier received certificates from NTRCA are frustrated as over one lakh candidates have already crossed 35 years of age due to delay in the appointment process of NTRCA.

Habibullah Raju, a job seeker, said: “Over one lakh registered teachers are spending their days in extreme frustration and anxiety. Many have lost their eligibility to apply as they are over 35. Due to delay in the NTRCA advertisement, many others are constantly crossing their age of 35, which is a great pain for the certificate holders.”