LUCKNOW, July 16 -- Flagging severe shortage of teachers in Uttar Pradesh's government primary, upper primary and secondary schools and pointing out that more than 81,000 sanctioned teaching posts remain vacant, the Centre has asked the state government to expedite recruitment.

The observations were made in the minutes of the Project Approval Board (PAB) meeting of the Union education ministry held on May 14 to review Uttar Pradesh's Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWP&B) for 2026-27 under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.

According to the document, 77,400 of the 2,50,488 sanctioned posts of elementary school teachers are vacant in the state. At the secondary level, 4,421 out of 11,083 sanctioned teaching posts are lying vacant. In total, over 3...