CM-Vashistha Guru Puraskar(CMVGP)

Overview

About CMVGP

The CM-Vashistha Guru Puraskar is not a scholarship for students. It is the Government of Goa's award for serving school teachers, special educators and heads of school, worth Rs 1,00,000 and a citation per winner, with at most ten winners a year.

The Directorate of Education at Porvorim runs it on paper: a teacher with at least 15 years of regular service in Goa files a self-nomination at an educational zone office during the annual call, a district committee scores it out of 100, a state committee hears the shortlisted teachers, and the Chief Minister hands over the awards at the state's Teachers' Day function in September (2025-26 guidelines, DIP Goa, 2023-24 winners).

The award sits in the Directorate of Education's own budget, and the line is small. Goa's Annual Administration Report for 2024-25, laid before the Legislative Assembly, lists the CM-Vashistha Guru Puraskar among the Directorate's state schemes with Rs 11.85 lakh allotted and Rs 8.76651 lakh utilised in that year. A full slate of ten winners costs Rs 10 lakh in prize money alone; the report does not break the spending down any further.

This is Goa's State Award for Teachers under a new name. The Department of Information and Publicity announced the "State Awards to Teachers 2021-22" for six teachers in September 2022 (DIP Goa, 2021-22 awards), and the Chief Minister's Teachers' Day message of September 2023 congratulated the recipients of the "CM-Vashistha Guru Puraskar 2022-23" (DIP Goa, Teachers' Day 2023), so the new name was in use by the 2022-23 round.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The nomination window has run for roughly three to five weeks, and in each of the last three rounds the award was named for the academic year that had just ended:

No call for the next round had been posted on the Directorate's Orders & Circulars page as of late September 2026. The last two calls opened on 24 June 2025 and 1 July 2026 (DIP Goa, 2024-25 call, 2025-26 circular), so the last week of June is when to start checking.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Five posts compete separately: Primary Teacher, Secondary Teacher, High School Headmaster, Higher Secondary Teacher and Higher Secondary Principal. Special educators and differently abled teachers apply under whichever of those five fits their post, and the 2025-26 revised guidelines reserve one of the 10 awards for the differently abled category.

Only service in Goa counts. The guidelines ask for 15 years of regular teaching service in the State of Goa, counted as on 30 June of the academic year the award is named for; for a headmaster, 5 of the 15 must be administrative experience. Because the award label trails the calendar (the 2025-26 round was called for in July 2026), check with the zonal office which 30 June applies to you before you file if you are within a few months of the 15-year mark.

Where the guidelines split awards "one in each District", the count follows the old North Goa and South Goa pattern, which the 2025-26 guidelines record as approved by the State Government on file dated 16/06/2026. The school must be a recognised government or aided primary, middle, high or higher secondary school, so a teacher in an unaided private school does not fit the eligibility clause at all.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Three of the disqualifiers surface on the nomination form itself, before any committee sees it. The recommending authority who signs Part III of the nomination proforma has to comment on whether the teacher has been penalised by the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education and whether any inquiry is running against them, and the same form asks for the applicant's date of superannuation, which lets the office spot a teacher due to retire in the award year.

The vigilance and criminal-case bar is checked further up. When the District Selection Committee forwards its shortlist, the guidelines require a vigilance clearance certificate for each name. The ban on private tuitions applies to heads of school as well as to classroom teachers.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing recurs after the September function: the prize and citation are given once, and neither the 2024-25 guidelines nor the 2025-26 revision says whether a past winner may self-nominate again.

What you get

Award & benefits

Each award is a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 and a citation under both the 2024-25 guidelines and the 2025-26 revision. The Chief Minister presents the awards at the state's Teachers' Day function; in 2024 that was the 63rd Teachers' Day, at the Dinanath Mangeshkar Kala Mandir, Kala Academy, Campal, as the Department of Information and Publicity reported.

Ten is a ceiling, not a promise. The guidelines free the government from granting an award in a category where no suitable teacher is found, and the published winners' lists show that happening.

• Cash Award: ₹1,00,000/- (Rupees One Lakh).
• Citation: Provided with each award.
• Total 10 Awards: Primary Teacher: Two Awards (One in each District).
• Secondary Teacher: Four Awards (Two in each District).
• High School Headmaster: Two Awards (One in each District).
• Higher Secondary Teacher: One Award (One in entire State).
• Higher Secondary Principal: One Award (One in entire State).
• _The recipients will be felicitated at the hands of the Chief Minister of Goa during the Teacher’s Day function._
• _The selected teachers will have to make a presentation before the State Level Committee._

What to prepare

Documents required

The attachments listed under this section are only part of the file; the proforma itself runs to four parts, and the applicant fills at most the first two. Part I asks for academic and professional qualifications separately, a designation-by-designation record of teaching years from Primary Teacher through Teacher Grade I to Principal, any service in rural or remote areas, and a service table covering subjects taught, classes handled and results at public or annual examinations.

Part II is for heads of school only: seven questions on innovations introduced (with abstracts attached), parents' involvement, upkeep of the building, school events and clubs, guidance to staff, targets met, and projects run in the last 3 years. Part III is the recommending authority's assessment on nine points, including the teacher's standing in the local community and work in remote rural areas, and Part IV is left for the District Selection Committee (2025-26 proforma).

Step by step

How to apply

Applications are paper files handed in at a zone office; there is no online submission. The 2025-26 circular, the guidelines and the Department of Information and Publicity's notice of the 2024-25 call set the route:

1. Download the proforma from the Directorate's Orders & Circulars page, or collect it from your taluka ADEI's office or the educational zone office.
2. Fill Part I (and Part II if you head a school), affix a recent passport photograph attested on the back by a Gazetted Officer, and add your portfolio and the signed undertaking.
3. Get Part III signed by the authority that recommends your post (table below).
4. Hand the file in at the educational zone office at Panaji, Mapusa or Margao within the nomination window; the guidelines say applications are received by hand by the Zonal Heads.
5. The Deputy Director of Education (DDE) of the zone adds comments on Part III and forwards the file to the North or South District Selection Committee; the Central zone sends Tiswadi files North and Ponda, Sanguem and Dharbandora files South.

Because the file stays on paper from the zone counter onward, the result reaches applicants the old way. The Department of Information and Publicity's press note naming the winners came out on 4 September in both 2024 and 2026, the day before the ceremony (2023-24 winners, press note 602). Teachers on the district shortlist know earlier, since the guidelines require each of them to present before the State Selection Committee; until then, the zone office that took the file is the place to ask.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Scoring happens twice, first in the district. A three-member District Selection Committee, with the DDE in the chair, the District Education Officer and one academician nominated by the government, sends verification teams to check each file on the ground, marks it on the Annexure-I matrix and certifies that the marks followed verification. It shortlists three names per award in a category, so with two Secondary Teacher awards per district, up to six secondary teachers from each district reach the state level, each with a vigilance clearance certificate.

At the state level the Director of Education chairs a six-member committee: the Director of SCERT, the Chairman of the Goa Board, the Principal of DIET, an academician nominated by the Education Minister, and the Assistant Director of Education (Adm. III) as member secretary. It starts its own assessment from scratch after hearing each nominee present, and its final list cannot exceed 9 + 1, the extra place belonging to the differently abled category.

The matrix changed for the 2025-26 round. The eight objective items still carry 20 marks, but the performance block was reweighted:

The objective items shifted too. Publications now count only from the past three years rather than five, the online-course item names iGOT Karmayogi alongside SWAYAM and other MOOCs, and the e-content item lists GSCERT, the Goa Board, NCERT, NIEPA and NCTE (2025-26 revised guidelines).

What this means for a portfolio follows from the weights in the guidelines: 80 of the 100 marks sit in performance criteria that the district committee's verification teams check, so dated photographs, activity reports and the teaching material itself carry more weight than claims. Part III of the proforma adds a caution that outstanding work shown through newspaper reports or publications "may not be considered for this purpose", even though journal publications earn up to 3 marks under the objective criteria, so press cuttings are no substitute for classroom evidence.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The portfolio goes in with a signed undertaking, and that page outlives the ceremony. Under the guidelines, anything in the file found untrue "at any later date" makes the teacher liable to disciplinary action, and the district verification teams will already have physically verified the same claims before a single mark was given.

Get help

Contact

Files on the award pass through the Adm. III section of the Directorate of Education at Alto-Porvorim, Bardez: its circulars for the award carry the reference DE/Adm.III, and the Assistant Director of Education (Adm. III) is member secretary of the State Selection Committee under the guidelines. The Directorate's contact page and the 2025-26 circular give dir-educ.goa@nic.in and 0832-2416023. For forms and filing, the first stop is the educational zone office at Mapusa (North), Panaji (Central) or Margao (South), or the taluka ADEI for primary teachers.

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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