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 31% of these posts are lying vacant. "In view of the significant number of vacancies, the state is advised to expedite the recruitment process to ensure adequate staffing in both elementary and secondary schools," the ministry said in the report. When contacted, Partha Sarthi Sen Sharma, additional chief secretary basic and secondary education, UP, said, "The CM has already announced that 10,000 more teachers will be recruited for urban primary teachers. The UP Education Service Selection Commission (UPESSC) has just conducted the TET and results are expected shortly. For secondary schools too, the recruitment process is on."The report also flagged an increase in schools facing teacher shortages despite a decline in single-teacher primary schools. While the number of single-teacher government primary schools fell from 2,586 in 2023-24 to 2,329 in 2024-25, the number of single-teacher upper primary schools rose from 3,109 to 3,288 during the same period. The ministry noted that the share of government upper primary schools with an adverse pupil-teacher ratio increased from 22% to 29%, and urged the state to take corrective measures to ensure compliance with RTE norms. ACS Sen Sharma said, "The teacher pupil ratio in primary government schools is 19:1 and upper primary schools 21:1 which is better than RTE norms." The review also highlighted shortages in teacher education institutions. It noted that the vacancy rate in the SCERT has increased from 16.67% in 2024-25 to 25% this year. Similarly, vacancies in District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) have risen from 42.24% to 45%. UP government informed the Project Approval Board that the recruitment process for vacant posts in SCERT and DIETs had already been initiated....