Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Bihar on a teacher-hiring overdrive

Patna: Bihar is witnessing the largest ever employment drive for teachers in the state, and aspirants are lining up for what they say is the best step taken by the state government in years.
For many like Raj Kishore Mehta - the sole bread earner in his family of his five - this employment drive has come as a much-aspired dream come true.
“Every one in our family is filling up the forms and the one who is the best will get the job,” Mehta says.
The latest drive is aimed at improving the teacher-student ratio from the present 1:62 to the national average of 1:40.
Under the ongoing drive, over two lakh teachers are to be appointed in the state and the interestingly there’s no specified upper age limit.
"This is a welcome step by Bihar government. It’s been 20 years since my mother graduated and she is still unemployed. Even we have completed our stiudeis. Now the two of us will apply together,” says an applicant Mani Lal.
These enthusiastic responses are just a reflection of how starved the state had been of fresh recruitments in over 15 years.
The challenge before the fresh recruits now is to live up to the expectations of millions of Bihar students, all of whom are banking their hopes and betting their futures on the would-be teachers.

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