Central Education Bill in LS

New Delhi: A bill which seeks to allow filling up of more than 7,000 existing vacancies by direct recruitment in accordance with a new quota system in institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha Thursday.

A similar bill was introduced in Parliament during the tenure of the previous Lok Sabha and it had lapsed.

The government had then brought an ordinance. The fresh Central Education Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’Cadre) Bill, 2019 seeks to replace the ordinance issued by the previous government.

It was introduced by Minister of State for HRD Sanjay Dhotre.

The bill will consider the university/college as one unit restoring earlier reservation system based on a 200-point roster.

The unit for reservation of posts in direct recruitment in teachers’ cadre will be the university/educational institutions, and not the department.

The University Grants Commission had announced in March last year that an individual department should be considered as the base unit to calculate the number of teaching posts to be reserved for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, following an order by the Allahabad High Court in April 2017.

The Supreme Court had in February dismissed a review petition filed by the HRD Ministry after its special leave petition against the court order was rejected by the apex court.

This was met with protests from teachers and students across the country following which the government had planned the legislation to overturn the court ruling.

According to the HRD Ministry, the proposed law is expected to improve teaching standards in higher educational institutions by attracting all eligible talented candidates belonging to SCs/STs/SEBCs/EWS.