Bhubaneswar, Dec. 10: School and mass education minister Debi Prasad Mishra today said that a test, similar to the Odisha Teachers' Eligibility Test (OTET), would shortly be held for recruiting secondary school teachers.

Mishra said this while replying to a question by Ganjam MLAs, including Digapahandi MLA Surya Narayan Patro, on what steps the government was taking to fill up vacancies in schools. The MLAs alleged that many teachers' posts were lying vacant in secondary schools.

Assuring the House that the state was trying to sort out the problem at the earliest, Mishra said that it would recruit teachers for secondary schools by conducting a quality teacher test on the pattern of OTET from the next academic session.

OTET, conducted by Board of Secondary Education, is held for recruitment of primary and upper primary teachers. "A major issue in recruitment of teachers is that we do not manage to get the required number of teachers even after we get a clearance for recruitment. We are going to implement quality teacher testing in secondary schools from next year," Mishra informed the House.