MAKING A POINT: Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Basavaraj Horatti speaking at a function in Mysore on Wednesday.

MYSORE: Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Basavaraj Horatti on Wednesday said that the process of recruiting 4,676 primary school teachers would be completed within a week. In all, 13,000 teachers would be appointed in the State within the next one-and-a-half months.

Addressing presspersons here, the Minister said, "The Government initiated the process from on Wednesday after the High Court vacated the stay order against the recruitment of teachers."

The proposal to appoint 3,900 more teachers was in the final stage of receiving approval from the Finance Department. His Ministry had submitted another proposal to recruit 5,600 primary school teachers.

Mr. Horatti said the Government intended to appoint 2,221 high school teachers and 600 junior college lecturers. The process would be speeded up.

The Government was collecting data pertaining to teachers who would be retiring from service by 2010. This was being done to ensure that the posts did not fall vacant following their superannuation.

Regarding certain information made available in transfer certificates of students, he said the Ministry had issued directions to schools that information pertaining to caste and parents should not be insisted upon. Admission should be provided even without such information, he added. Earlier, speaking at a function organised by Jnanabuthi, a non-governmental organisation, the Minister said notices had been issued to 1,416 schools across the State for violating the language policy.

He said these schools had taken permission to teach in Kannada medium, but had been offering education in English medium. "This is a clear violation of the language policy as well as the direction of the Supreme Court on the use of mother-tongue," he added.

He said the Government had issued notices to these schools, and it would not hesitate to withdraw the recognition granted to them if the language policy was violated again.

The Minister said the Government would purchase books to help students preparing for competitive examinations and distribute them among the district libraries. Books worth Rs. 1 crore would be distributed to district libraries in the State.

Mr. Horatti said the libraries had been directed to open a separate section to store books for the benefit of students appearing for competitive examinations. This section would be open between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Fifteen per cent of the allocation to libraries would be spent on the purchase of books related to competitive examinations, he added.

Deputy Commissioner S. Selvakumar, MLC Marithibbe Gowda, and former Vice-chancellor of Mysore university D. Jaware Gowda were present.

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