Thiruvananthapuram: The aided school managements in Kerala have turned down the schedule set by the State Government to fill teaching and non-teaching vacancies reserved for the differently abled since 1996.

In a recent order, the State Government directed the school managements to prepare the roster register on the reserved vacancies and submit it online to the department concerned before June 25. It further stipulated the schools to forward applications for the list of eligible candidates before 30. Most managements, however, have chosen not to comply with these directions.

The deadline set for the employment exchanges to hand over the list of differently abled candidates, who are eligible for recruitment, expired on Thursday. While the government order stipulated to fill all such vacancies before August 15, the process could not be completed due to non-cooperation by managements.

Impractical, say school owners

Earlier, the High Court had ordered to implement the reservation for differently abled in aided-schools by filling three percent of the vacancies reported between February 7, 1996, and April 18, 2017, and four percent of vacancies available from April 19, 2017, onwards with retrospective effect. 

The managements, however, have vehemently opposed the proposal to reserve those vacancies, which come up in the first place while implementing reservation with retrospective effect, to the differently abled. 

For the managements running just one or two schools, this proposal is simply impractical, they argue.

Roster dispatched directly

The government order had stipulated the roaster to be uploaded into the ‘Samanwaya’ portal, based on which the document pertaining to the seats reserved to the differently abled be handed over from the employment exchanges. However, most managements dispatched the roasters directly to the sub-district education offices, citing that the vacancies that come up in the first place were being reserved for the differently abled. The government, however, does not approve of this.

The government has decided to approve the recruitments carried out by only those managements which had submitted applications to the employment exchanges for recruiting the differently abled.