Maharashtra Leaves 4,860 Sports Teacher Posts Out of Recruitment Drive
The Maharashtra government has excluded 4,860 sanctioned sports teacher positions from its ongoing recruitment drive to hire over 30,000 teachers across the state. The decision has drawn strong opposition from job aspirants holding a Bachelor of Physical Education (BPEd) degree, who previously demonstrated at Azad Maidan in Mumbai to demand that the vacant roles be filled immediately.
The 4,860 vacant posts were officially sanctioned through a Government Resolution issued by the state's school education department on January 2. Under the government's plan, one physical education teacher was to be appointed to each of the 4,860 cluster primary schools managed by zilla parishads across Maharashtra. However, these sanctioned positions were omitted from the official listing on the state's hiring system, the Pavitra Portal.
Job seekers with BPEd qualifications have been awaiting a major hiring effort for a decade, as the last major recruitment drive for physical education teachers was conducted in 2014. In April this year, qualified candidates staged a protest at Azad Maidan in Mumbai to press the government to include physical education vacancies in the current recruitment round.
Currently, numerous schools across urban and rural parts of Maharashtra operate without full-time physical education teachers. In several institutions, sports instruction is managed by contractual workers who receive a daily payment of around ₹150. Teachers' organisations pointed out that relying on low-paid contractual arrangements impacts the quality of sports education provided to students.
Teachers' bodies, including the Maharashtra Yuva Sharirik Shikshan Mahasangh (MYSSM), have called on state authorities to immediately list all 4,860 sanctioned sports teacher positions on the Pavitra Portal and integrate them into the active recruitment process.
MYSSM secretary Tayappa Shendge stated that candidates expected the 4,860 posts to be included on the portal and urged the government to assign proper positions to physical education instructors. Shendge noted that while these 4,860 sanctioned posts were designated for primary schools, the state government has yet to finalise physical education teacher positions for secondary schools.
In addition to the exclusion of physical education posts, the school education department extended the application deadline on the Pavitra Portal from August 11 to August 13. The extension followed complaints from applicants regarding technical glitches, including non-receipt of OTPs and website crashes. Balusha Mane, chairperson of the Shivunity Foundation, had written to authorities regarding these issues prior to the deadline extension.
