Bhubaneswar, Aug. 22: The state government will engage retired teachers in government high schools to meet the shortage of teaching faculty.

Explaining the "Teacher on call" scheme, school and mass education minister Debi Prasad Mishra said: "Because of lack of qualified teachers, there are many vacancies in government high schools, for which students are suffering. The process of engaging contract teachers against such vacancies may take considerable time due to different cases."

There are 6,275 vacancies in various high schools of the state. About 5,000 more teachers will be retiring in the next couple of years taking the numbers to 10,000. The state has around 7,000 government-run high schools.

"Keeping in view the impending problem, the government has decided to engage retired teachers of nearby localities under the 'Teacher on call' scheme. It will also ensure better quality of education by them," said Mishra.

All the district education officers have been asked to prepare a list of retired teachers in their respective districts and contact them. A list of teachers interested under this scheme will be prepared and contacted.

Each teacher will have to take classes for at least 20 days, said the notification. The scheme will be implemented from 2016 till the vacancies are filled up.

In another development, teachers from 4,000 block grant schools today threatened to boycott next year's panchayat polls.

"None of the 40,000 block grant teachers or their families will cast their votes in the election. We will also not take part in any poll-related duty," said Block Grant Secondary School Teachers and Employees Association president Prasanna Pati.

Pati said the members of the association would take out a rally to press for their demands on September 8.

The association has demanded that the state government take all the new grant-in-aid high schools under the government fold and implement the equal work and equal pay policy.

Funds cuffs

Police today arrested the headmaster of a government-run primary school for allegedly embezzling government funds earmarked for building toilets on the institute premises.

Nirmal Kumar Acharya, headmaster of Gokhapada Primary School in Kendrapara, has been charged with misappropriating Rs 5.14 lakh released by government agencies for building toilets.#"We have corroborative evidence of embezzlement of funds against the accused. Our investigation has prima facie revealed the two schools he was in charge of had no toilets," said a police official.

"The accused had drawn Rs 3.53 lakh and 1.61 lakh respectively for toilet and building projects in Gokhapada and Karanja primary schools, of which he was the headmaster," said Sarva Shiksha Aviyan's technical consultant Atanu Kumar Das.