HYDERABAD: To improve efficiency, balance workload and relieve teachers of additional duties, the School Education department, Telangana, is planning to rationalise non-teaching staff in government schools across the state.

According to sources, the department does not have accurate data on the number of non-teaching staff in government schools.

However, facial-recognition attendance data from August 2025 shows over 96,000 staff — both teaching and non-teaching — across 26,040 government schools.

Several schools reportedly have no non-teaching staff, forcing teachers to handle dual responsibilities such as uploading records, managing libraries and other administrative tasks, apart from regular teaching.

In contrast, some schools have surplus non-teaching staff. To address this imbalance, the department is planning to redeploy excess staff to schools with shortages, thereby reducing the burden on teachers.

Speaking to the TNIE, a senior Education official said, “To ease the burden on government school teachers, we are planning to rationalise non-teaching staff. This initiative aims to redeploy surplus personnel to schools with vacancies and does not involve creating new posts or reducing sanctioned ones. As part of this process, we will conduct a survey across all government schools to identify any surplus clerks and, if found, reassign them to schools that have none.”

Several government school teachers said the move will provide much-needed relief, as lack of non-teaching staff has forced them to take up additional work, causing a loss of several working days.

The story is reported by Meghna Nath for The New Indian Express