The Patna high court on Wednesday directed the state government to treat ‘contract teachers‘ and ‘guest teachers‘ equally in the recruitment process conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) and consequently stayed the BPSC’s Teachers Recruitment Exam (TRE)-3
Justice Anjani Kumar Sharan, while disposing of petitions, said, “Both contract teachers and guest teachers are performing the same duties of teaching students and there is no difference between the two. The state government is directed to decide within a month to grant five marks for each year of employment, up to a maximum of 25 marks, to guest teachers as is given to contract teachers.”
The court also stayed advertisement No. 22/24 dated February 2024 (TRE-3).
The high court’s order will benefit over 4,000 guest teachers across the state, allowing them to participate in the BPSC teachers’ recruitment exam with the same preferential marks as contract teachers. The guest teachers lost their positions on April 1, 2024, following an order from the education department.
The Director of Secondary Education had recently instructed district education officers to discontinue the services of guest teachers who were hired on a fixed remuneration after an order from the education department on January 25, 2018. This was because the recruitment of 94,738 teachers in higher secondary schools – 37,847 for classes IX and X and 56,891 for classes XI and XII – rendered the need for guest teachers unnecessary.
The court noted that guest teachers, like contract teachers, were involved in conducting various administrative duties such as elections and examination evaluations. However, the BPSC did not initially offer the same preference marks to guest teachers in its TRE 3.0 advertisement. PTI
