27-year wait ends at 59 as UP man finally lands govt teaching job

At 59, when many people are preparing to step away from their working lives, Vijay Kumar Sharma is preparing to begin a new chapter.

The Uttar Pradesh man has finally secured the government teaching job he had pursued for 27 years, turning years of failed attempts, repeated examinations and continued self-study into an appointment as a TGT Sanskrit teacher at an aided secondary school in neighbouring Shamli district.

Sharma, a resident of Badhwad village in the Baraut area of Baghpat, received his appointment letter from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at a programme at the Indira Gandhi Pratishthan in Lucknow on September 22.

For Sharma, the letter represents far more than a job. It marks the culmination of a journey that began in 1999 and continued through decades of uncertainty and rejection.

Over the years, Sharma cleared the TGT written examination six times and the PGT examination four times. He also appeared for interviews around eight times, but each time, his name failed to make the final selection list.

Yet, every setback sent him back to his books.

Rather than abandoning his goal, Sharma continued preparing for recruitment examinations while working as a private-school teacher. For nearly 26 years, he taught Hindi and Sanskrit at Vivekanand Vidyapeeth and Doon Public School while pursuing his ambition of entering government service.

Prashant Jain, director of Doon Public School, said Sharma would teach students during the day and devote his time to preparing for competitive examinations.

This time, there was a crucial difference in the recruitment process: there was no interview.

Sharma cleared the process and finally secured the appointment that had eluded him for nearly three decades.

Teaching, meanwhile, was never unfamiliar territory for him. His father, Laxman Singh, was also a teacher, making education a part of the family’s life.

Sharma’s journey has also unfolded alongside that of his children. His two sons are employed with the Uttar Pradesh Police, while one of his three daughters has also been selected for a teaching post and is currently on the waiting list.

For Sharma, the years of rejection became part of the preparation rather than a reason to give up. Each unsuccessful attempt pushed him to return to his studies and try again.

His story now comes full circle at an age when many would consider a decades-old career goal too late to pursue. After 27 years of waiting, Sharma is finally set to walk into a government school not as an aspirant, but as a teacher.