New Delhi: A severe staffing crisis has hit the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), with more than half of its sanctioned positions lying vacant, according to official data presented in Parliament. The figures reveal a worrying halt in recruitment for two consecutive years, raising questions about the operational capacity of India's premier educational research body.
Parliamentary Data Exposes Massive Vacancies
The Ministry of Education, in a written reply to a question by All India Trinamool Congress MP Samirul Islam from West Bengal, disclosed the scale of the problem. The data covers NCERT and all its constituent institutions.
Out of a total of 2,844 sanctioned posts, only 1,219 are currently filled. This leaves a staggering 1,625 positions vacant, which translates to a vacancy rate of 57 per cent across the organisation.
The vacancy data includes NCERT's key constituent bodies:
- The Regional Institutes of Education (RIEs)
- Pandit Sunderlal Sharma Central Institute of Vocational Education, Bhopal
- Central Institute of Teacher Education (CITE)
- Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET)
Non-Academic Staff Worst Hit, Two-Year Recruitment Freeze
The shortages are pervasive but most acute in non-academic support roles. Group B and Group C posts, which include administrative and clerical staff, account for the overwhelming majority of unfilled positions.
The breakdown of vacancies by category is alarming:
Group A: 208 out of 647 posts vacant (32% vacancy rate)
Group B: 907 out of 1,276 posts vacant (71% vacancy rate)
Group C: 1,109 out of 1,520 posts vacant (73% vacancy rate)
Nearly three out of every four Group C posts are empty. Crucially, the data shows that NCERT conducted no recruitment drives during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years, allowing vacancies to pile up. Over the last five years, the council recruited 229 academic and 216 non-academic staff members. In 2022-23, only one non-academic staff member was hired.
Contractual Staff Fill the Gap, Raising Concerns
To manage its daily functions amidst this severe staff crunch, NCERT has increasingly turned to contractual hiring. In the 2022-23 period, the organisation employed 760 contractual workers. This number was around 655 for 2024-25.
This reliance on temporary staff has not gone unnoticed. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education has previously flagged this practice, emphasising the need to end long-term contractual employment and fill positions with permanent staff to ensure stability and quality of work.
Pattern Mirrored in Other Education Bodies
The problem is not isolated to NCERT. The data shared in Parliament indicates a similar trend of negligible permanent recruitment in two other key bodies under the Education Ministry: the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).
Responding to the concerns in Parliament, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary stated that recruitment is a continuous process. He assured that efforts are being made to fill the vacancies in accordance with the provisions of the relevant recruitment rules.
The massive vacancies at the heart of India's educational research and policy framework highlight a systemic challenge that could impact curriculum development, teacher training, and the implementation of key national education initiatives.
