The Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education (CETE) at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on Thursday released the State of Teachers, Teaching and Teacher Education Report (SOTTTER) highlighting teacher availability and deployment. The study from eight states across India shows that 35 to 41 per cent of mathematics teachers in both government and private schools did not have mathematics as a subject at the undergraduate level.

While the survey reiterates concerns over teacher vacancy, among requirements of teachers for various subjects, mathematics tops the chart with 35 per cent. This is followed by teacher requirements for those qualified to teach English (31 per cent) and regional languages (30 per cent).

The report titled ‘The Right Teacher for Every Child’ is based on surveys conducted in states – Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Mizoram, Telangana. The survey covers 422 schools, 3615 teachers, 422 Head Teachers, 68 teacher education institutions and 1481 Student teachers studying in B.Ed. programs and 268 teacher educators. Padma M. Sarangapani, Chairperson of the CETE at TISS and lead author of the report, shared that the report also includes data from eight background research papers that used primary and secondary data including UDISE+ 2021-22, Periodic Labour Force Survey 2021-22 among all.

While the report states that only 46 per cent of teachers teaching primary classes were found to have appropriate professional qualifications across all states, it also shows that there are marked variations between different states in India.” The North Eastern States and the Himalayan States are still to ensure basic amenities are provided to teachers and students in schools,” states the report.

The report has highlighted that poor employment terms in the private sector along with irregular recruitment in the government sector affect the attractiveness of the teaching profession. While in many states, the private sector is seen employing a significant – 40 per cent – number of teachers; over 50 per cent work without any written contracts.

While the government is emphasising on multidisciplinary, holistic education; the SOTTTER 2023 has pointed out that there is a great level of paucity of teachers for subjects such as physical education, music, and art. “Provisioning of physical education teachers was overall low with 36 per cent in government schools and 65 per cent private schools. Provisioning of art teachers and Music teachers is even lower,” states the report.

The trends brought out in this report according to researchers can guide policy on the demand and supply of teachers, teacher recruitment and pre-service teacher education. Padma M. Sarangapani, Chairperson of the CETE at TISS and lead author of the report said, “By using multiple sources of data we were able to provide a very comprehensive view of the teaching occupation across both government and private sector and gain some insights into the occupations trends.”