Transfer Policy must unite Teachers, Not divide them

By Desk Editor Published on Sep 9, 2026

Majid Marouphay

A transfer policy should rationalise teachers, not rationalise discrimination. The classroom should unite teachers on the basis of their work; the service rules should not permanently divide them on the basis of their past.

The proposed Transfer Policy of the School Education Department, particularly the provision that transfers shall take place “RReT to RReT, Grade-II to Grade-II and Grade-III to Grade-III,” while keeping General Line Teachers (GLTs) outside this framework, raises serious questions of fairness, equality and administrative logic. If implemented in its present form, the policy risks creating a permanent hierarchy among teachers who, on the ground, perform substantially the same academic and institutional responsibilities. It gives an unmistakable impression of a cadre-based apartheid, where a teacher’s historical mode of appointment continues to determine his or her professional rights even after regularisation.

The fundamental question is simple: what is the justification for denying an RReT the opportunity to seek transfer against a GLT after the RReT has been regularised and absorbed into the regular teaching establishment? Once an RReT completes the prescribed period, attains regularisation and is assigned the status of a regular teacher, he/she is expected to discharge teaching, examination, administrative, online, co-curricular and numerous other duties in exactly the same school environment as a GLT. The Department does not create separate classrooms, separate syllabi or separate responsibilities for these teachers. Then why should it create separate rights when it comes to transfer?

The irony becomes even more glaring when we examine the actual functioning of schools over the last two decades. RReTs have repeatedly been deployed in High and Higher Secondary Schools whenever there has been a shortage of permanent staff. They have taught adolescents, handled examination duties, managed school records, participated in departmental programmes and performed every assignment entrusted to regular teachers. When a school is understaffed, the Department apparently finds no difficulty in using an RReT where a GLT is required. But when it comes to a basic service entitlement such as transfer, the same teacher suddenly becomes a different category.

This is not merely a technical issue of cadre management. It is an issue of dignity and equal treatment. A teacher cannot be considered sufficiently competent and interchangeable with a regular teacher when the Department needs his or her services, but insufficiently equal when the teacher seeks a transfer. If an RReT can be deployed to a High or Higher Secondary School to fill a critical vacancy, why cannot a GLT be transferred against that post when administrative rationalisation demands it? If both are teaching in the same institution, performing the same duties and carrying the same institutional responsibilities, a blanket prohibition on inter-cadre transfers requires a much stronger justification than merely citing cadre classification.

The proposed distinction also creates a dangerous institutional wedge. It effectively tells two teachers standing in the same staff room, teaching the same children and performing the same duties that their professional rights are permanently different because of how they entered government service years ago. Such a distinction may be administratively convenient, but administrative convenience cannot automatically become a justification for unequal treatment.

The proposed policy may also unintentionally encourage an inequitable distribution of hardship. Teachers serving in far-flung, difficult and rural areas need a realistic avenue for mobility. If GLTs are permitted to move only within their own cadre while RReTs are similarly confined, there will be limited scope for genuine rationalisation. Worse, if desirable or conveniently located institutions become dominated by particular categories through accumulated postings, while remote areas continue to depend disproportionately on RReTs, the policy could actually institutionalise the very imbalance that a transfer policy is supposed to correct.

The Department must also answer a larger question: Is the objective of a transfer policy to protect cadres or to serve schools? If the purpose is rational deployment of teachers, then the policy should begin with the needs of the institution. A vacancy is a vacancy, a subject requirement is a subject requirement and a teacher’s competence to perform assigned duties should be the primary consideration. Artificial restrictions preventing an otherwise eligible regular teacher from moving against a suitable vacancy merely because the incumbent belongs to another historically created category appear difficult to reconcile with the stated objectives of rationalisation and effective deployment.

The RReT community has already spent decades contributing to the education system under difficult circumstances. Many entered service at a young age, served in remote and inaccessible areas, endured uncertainty and later became regular teachers through the prescribed process. After regularisation, they continue to serve the same department, teach the same curriculum and shoulder the same institutional responsibilities. To continue treating them as a permanently separate class for purposes of transfer is difficult to justify on the ground of administrative rationalisation alone.

A teacher’s past mode of appointment should not become a lifelong penalty. If the Government genuinely believes in equality, rationalisation and the welfare of students, it should reconsider the rigid “RReT-to-RReT, Grade-II-to-Grade-II and Grade-III-to-Grade-III” formula. A rational transfer policy should permit inter-cadre transfers wherever the teacher possesses the requisite qualification, the post is appropriate, the subject requirement is met and administrative exigencies so demand, subject to transparent rules.

Otherwise, the proposed policy risks doing precisely the opposite of what it claims to achieve. Instead of removing disparities, it may freeze them into the system. Instead of creating one cohesive teaching community, it may institutionalise divisions between teachers who are already performing the same job. And instead of rationalising deployment, it may perpetuate a two-tier perception within the teaching fraternity.

The Government should therefore ask itself a fundamental question before finalising this policy: If an RReT is good enough to teach where the Department has no GLT, good enough to work in a High or Higher Secondary School, good enough to conduct examinations, good enough to perform administrative duties and good enough to carry the burden of a school in a far-flung area. Why is that teacher suddenly not good enough to be transferred against a GLT vacancy? That contradiction lies at the very heart of the proposed policy. A transfer policy should rationalise teachers, not rationalise discrimination. The classroom should unite teachers on the basis of their work; the service rules should not permanently divide them on the basis of their past.

(The writer is a teacher and can be reached at khanmarouphay@gmail.com)