What is the action plan for creation and recruitment of posts of art teachers in government schools of the state – High Court

Jaipur, 9 December (Hindustan Reporter). The Rajasthan High Court has asked the state government within four weeks what is the action plan for the creation and recruitment of art teacher posts in all the government schools of the state. The division bench of CJ MM Srivastava and Justice Umashankar Vyas gave this order while hearing the PIL of Vimal Sharma. The court said that when art is a compulsory subject then art teachers should be appointed in schools. The court said that giving the responsibility to other teachers could be an arrangement, whereas every school should have a separate art teacher.

During the hearing on the petition, it was said on behalf of the state government that in order to develop the ability and capability of teachers of other subjects to teach arts subjects, they are being trained and made to teach arts subjects. The state government admitted that these teachers are not graduates in arts i.e. painting and music like other teachers. On this, the court has asked to present an action plan for the creation and recruitment of posts of art teachers.

In the PIL, advocate Tanveer Ahmed said that under the Right to Education Act, the subjects of painting and music have been made mandatory in every school. Despite this, no expert teacher has been appointed to impart art education in about 70 thousand schools of the state. The job of teaching art subjects in schools is handed over to teachers of other subjects. This is also against the education service rules and NCTE standards. The petition said that art education is necessary for the creative and mental development of children. Due to lack of qualified art teachers, the creative development of children is being hindered and in its absence, mental stress and violent tendencies are increasing among them. It was also told in the petition that according to the information received in RTI, despite art being a compulsory subject, neither any post was created for it nor there is a provision for appointment as art teacher. Whereas for art education, in the last several sessions, neither books were published nor distributed. While hearing this, the court has sought information about the action plan in this regard from the state government.