Bikaner, Aug. 23 -- Rajasthan government schools are set to rely on guest faculty to address a large teaching shortage, with 67,104 posts of senior teachers and lecturers lying vacant even as another 4,230 employees of the state's two school-education departments are projected to retire between July and September. Chief secretary V Srinivas has directed district collectors to ensure effective and time-bound implementation of the Vidya Sambal Yojana to make teaching arrangements against sanctioned vacant posts. According to the August data of the education department's Shala Darpan portal, government schools have 51,877 vacant posts of senior teachers and 15,227 vacant posts of lecturers. Together, these two categories account for 67,104 vacancies. The government, however, is undertaking a broader Vidya Sambal exercise covering 76,791 vacant posts for which guest faculty arrangements are proposed. The directions issued by Srinivas on August 18 place district collectors at the centre of the implementation process. Collectors will have to obtain vacancy details from education authorities and ensure that guest faculty are engaged wherever teaching arrangements are required under the scheme. The exercise is intended to provide an interim teaching arrangement against sanctioned vacancies and is not a substitute for regular recruitment. A district-level committee headed by the collector, or an officer nominated by him, will oversee the selection process. The committee will prepare a merit list in accordance with the prescribed eligibility and academic criteria and, wherever possible, prepare a panel of three candidates against each vacant post. Eligible retired teachers can also be considered for guest-faculty engagement, expanding the pool available to the government to address the shortage. The staffing pressure is also likely to continue because of retirements. The latest available monthly report of the Rajasthan Pension Department projects 4,230 retirements in the Secondary and Elementary Education departments during July, August and September. Of these, 4,031 are from the Secondary Education Department and 199 from the Elementary Education Department. The monthly breakup shows 2,158 retirements in July, 1,238 in August and another 834 projected for September. The maximum monthly honorarium under the scheme is Rs.30,000 for lecturers, Rs.25,000 for senior teachers and Rs.21,000 for Grade-III teachers. Laboratory assistants and computer instructors are also eligible for a maximum monthly honorarium of Rs.21,000, subject to the prescribed hourly rates. The engagement is temporary and does not confer any right to regular appointment or regularisation. The Vidya Sambal mechanism is already being used in Rajasthan's higher and technical education institutions for the 2026-27 session. In Bikaner, district collector Nishant Jain confirmed that the directions had been received and said the district administration would constitute the prescribed committee and initiate action according to the rules....