City’s government schools are continuing to plug the shortage of postgraduate teachers (PGTs) and lecturers through contractual and guest appointments, even as 129 sanctioned PGT posts remain vacant and the administration has sought creation of 186 additional posts from the ministry of education.

The extent of the gap becomes apparent at the school level, where the requirement is not simply for teachers in numbers but for subject-specific lecturers for Classes 11 and 12. At Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 39 C, for instance, 221 students are enrolled in Classes 11 and 12, while the school has only one regular lecturer, who teaches English, according to school-level data. The arrangement highlights the challenge of meeting the teaching requirements of senior-secondary students across different subjects through the available faculty.

The problem is not confined to a single school. Official recruitment records of the education department show that PGTs have continued to be posted at government senior-secondary schools against vacant posts. In the 2025 recruitment round, lecturers in subjects including political science, Hindi, sociology, Punjabi and English were posted against vacant positions in schools across Chandigarh. The department continues to maintain a dedicated recruitment stream for lecturers/PGTs across subjects including physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, English, economics and others.

While the department has been filling some of the immediate gaps through contractual and guest teachers, such appointments do not address the underlying requirement for regular PGTs. The education department’s recruitment material itself provides for 541 PGT posts, while the department has now sought 186 additional posts, pointing to a staffing requirement that has persisted beyond individual vacancies.

The shortage assumes greater significance as the UT has 43 government senior-secondary schools among its 111 government schools, with students in Classes 11 and 12 studying specialised subjects for board examinations and further education. The department’s school prospectus lists a range of subject combinations offered across government senior-secondary schools, including science and commerce subjects.

The department is also looking at other ways of managing the shortage. Its website carries records of deputation of masters/mistresses and lecturers from Punjab and Haryana, besides notices related to engagement of teachers on contract.

The issue is particularly important for subjects such as physics, chemistry, mathematics and English, where students require continuous subject-specific teaching in the senior-secondary years. An overall PGT vacancy figure, therefore, does not fully capture whether individual schools have adequate teachers for the subjects they offer.

Director school education Nitish Singla said the shortage was not deliberate and that the creation of new posts was under the mandate of the ministry of education. “We have already taken up the matter with them, it is under process,” he said. He added that around 45 PGT posts are likely to be filled through promotion of TGTs, while another 10 posts are proposed to be filled through deputation.

Ranbir Kumar, JTA president, said the department needed to focus on filling vacant PGT posts as well as ensuring subject-wise deployment in senior-secondary schools. “The immediate requirement is to fill the vacant posts and ensure that senior-secondary schools have teachers according to their subjects and student strength. Promotion of eligible TGTs can help address the shortage, but recruitment and creation of posts should also keep pace with the expansion of senior-secondary classes,” he said.