In a major boost to inclusivity, the Karnataka Government has decided to induct teachers from the transgender community. The State’s Department of Public Instructions has invited applications for primary school teachers of which one per cent reservation has been kept for transgenders, thus making Karnataka India’s first State to recruit transgender teachers.

Expressing his views on this, the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, B.C. Nagesh told the media: “This is a significant step and we are hoping this will help the community join the mainstream.”

The Department of Primary and Secondary Education also said that in all recruitments in the future, this reservation will be there. This was also mentioned in the draft guidelines which have been published for the recruitment of 15,000 teachers to various government schools throughout the State which has earmarked 150 positions for the community.

The Commissioner of Public Instruction, Dr. Vishal R said: "This is the first recruitment we are doing after the amendments were brought to the rules.”

In case there are no candidates or if there are fewer people than one per cent, then the vacant positions will be converted to other categories.

The eligibility requirements for the transgender are the same as for other categories – they must be graduates in any subject with B.Ed degrees and should have cleared the Teacher Eligibility Test.

Last year in December, the State had decided to include transgenders in police and in a notification issued it invited men, women and trans persons for the post of sub-inspectors.

Also read: Alisha Patel becomes Gujarat’s first trans-gender to receive ID card