Chandigarh, Sept. 22 -- 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...