Centralised hiring leads to language, cultural barriers in Eklavya schools

File picture of an Eklavya residential school in Nalgonda, Telangana. A large numbers of staff recruited from Hindi-speaking States are protesting postings to the Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) located in southern States, where the language, food and culture is unfamiliar to them.
| Photo Credit: Singam Venkataramanana

The recent centralisation of recruitment for tribal residential schools across the country, which introduced Hindi competency as a mandatory requirement, has resulted in a flood of requests for transfers. The large numbers of staff recruited from Hindi-speaking States are protesting postings to the Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) located in southern States, where the language, food and culture is unfamiliar to them.

Though Central officials point out that the willingness to be posted anywhere in the country was part of the requirement for those applying for jobs, the bigger worry may be the impact on tribal students being taught by teachers who are unfamiliar with the local language and culture.

Staff shortage

Until last year, staff recruitment for the Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ flagship Eklavya schools was done by State authorities. In the 2023 Budget session of Parliament, however, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that the responsibility was being shifted to the National Education Society for Tribal Students (NESTS), which has now been given the task of staffing 38,000 positions in over 400 Eklavya schools across the country. Officials said the centralisation of recruitment was meant to address a severe shortage of teachers in the EMRS system, and to standardise recruitment rules across States, which had earlier used varying criteria and applied reservation quotas as per their State legislations.

The examination for this centralised recruitment process – the 2023 EMRS Staff Selection Examination – was entrusted with the National Testing Agency, now beleaguered by several scandals. The examination was for the first round of 4,000 vacant teaching and non-teaching positions across the Eklavya schools. In June, NESTS said that 303 Principals and 707 Junior Secretariat Assistants had been selected, along with thousands of other teaching and non-teaching positions. However, given the new requirement of Hindi competency, a large number of selected candidates hail from Hindi-speaking States, many of whom now want transfers from their postings.

‘No transfers for now’

Since June 20, when the NESTS office in Delhi opened a one-hour window to address candidates’ grievances in person, aggrieved candidates have been showing every day. “Some days, four will show up, but other days it will be 20 showing up with their issues,” one source said.  

NESTS has been forced to post a notification on its website, saying, “All posted candidates are requested not to approach NESTS office for change of place of posting. At present, no request for change of place of posting is being considered. Moreover, the transfers, whenever [they] happen, will be through the transfer portal on the NESTS website which will be made live once transfer policy is published.”

Government sources said that NESTS will soon roll out a transfer policy, which is likely to be modelled on similar policy for the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and Kendriya Vidyalayas. They added that there was “nothing unusual” about the requirement of basic Hindi language competency as this is mandatory for JNV and KV recruitment as well.

Specific cultural contexts

Unlike in KVs, however, where students hail from across the country as they are often family members of Central government employees, most tribal students in Eklavya schools would benefit from teachers who understand their local cultural contexts. “The issue is that for EMRSs especially, teachers and school staff being hired from within their local communities is the obvious way to go ahead. These communities have very specific contexts under which learning can be made conducive and it would naturally help to have teachers who understand that context,” said Aparna Choudhary, a social worker who runs the Delhi-based Karta Initiative, which has worked with JNVs and EMRSs.

“Some of the EMRSs are located in very remote regions, which have very specific cultural contexts. Something like this will only affect their learning. A child in a Telugu or Marathi context cannot be expected to adjust to teachers who are not aware of that. It will have a similar effect if non-Hindi speaking teachers end up in Hindi-speaking regions,” she said.

‘Learn local language’

Government officials say that staff recruits have been told to learn the local language within two years, and that a “certain amount of hand-holding will be done in this process to train them”. One source said: “While taking jobs, they are required to be posted everywhere. This was made clear in their applications. It would also be very unfair to the schools in the south if the staffers keep saying they do not want to be posted there.”

 “Even if they were to help us learn the local language, I don’t think I will be able to,” said Priyanka, 26, from Hisar, who was appointed as a Junior Secretariat Assistant in an EMRS in Telangana and arrived to join her posting on July 11. “They could have at least assigned us to our own States like many others have got the chance.”

Another staffer from Delhi, also posted in Telangana complained of the “nature of the food” and wanted to inquire about the process of requesting a transfer.

Officials, however, explained that, in accordance with established procedure, the first preference for posting in home States is given to persons with disabilities, followed by Scheduled Tribe (ST) women, ST men, women from general categories, and then general category men.