Amarjeet Sinha (centre), principal secretary, education, addresses the meeting with district education and programme officers in Patna on Monday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

The education department would soon organise camps in districts to hire teachers for primary schools, principal secretary Amarjeet Sinha said on Monday.

Addressing a meeting of the department at a city hotel, Sinha issued directives to district education and programme officers to speed up the appointment of teachers in primary schools.

The government conducted the Teacher Eligibility Test in 2011. But till now only 18,000 of 1.69 lakh candidates who have qualified have joined the services.

Speaking to his juniors in the department, Sinha said: “It is necessary to speed up the recruitment of teachers. We are soon going to organise camps at the district and block levels to hire teachers for primary schools.”

The camps will start on October 21. Candidates who have cleared the Teacher Eligibility Test can attend the camps for recruitment.

Sinha also directed the district education and programme officers to ensure that salaries of government schoolteachers are paid on time.

Informed that many teachers had not got their salaries for months, Sinha lost his cool and said: “It is unfortunate that teachers are not getting salaries for the lackadaisical attitude of some officials. The government will take strong action against such officials.”

Sinha also blasted the officers concerned for their failure to submit utilisation certificates.

The certificate has to be provided by the officials of different districts to give account of how they have spent the funds allotted to them through various schemes, like the chief minister’s bicycle scheme, scholarships and the uniform.

An official at the meeting, who did not want to be named, said: “It seems the state government is serious about providing quality education to students. In a bid to improve the standard of education in the state, the department wants all schemes to be implemented successfully.”

Besides the older schemes, chief minister Nitish Kumar on August 15 this year announced a number of sops for students and teachers. Girl students of classes I to X would be given scholarships. Salaries of contract teachers under the panchayat and urban local bodies would be hiked by Rs 3,000 from September.

The department has also entered into tie-ups with banks to ensure that salaries of teachers are deposited directly into their accounts. This has been done to ensure smooth payment of salaries to schoolteachers.

The official said: “The state government has introduced such schemes. If the lackadaisical attitude of officials prevents their effective implementation, such officials would be taken to task.”