Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday announced that candidates domiciled in the state will be given preference in the recruitment of government teachers.

Kumar said that the education department has been directed “to make necessary amendments to the rules to give priority to the residents [domicile] of Bihar”. The policy will be implemented from the Teachers’ Recruitment Exam-4, or TRE-4, which will be held later this year, the chief minister announced.

He added that the TRE-5 will be held in 2026, and the State Teacher Eligibility Test will be held before that.

However, the chief minister did not state what percentage of teacher recruitments will be reserved for candidates domiciled in Bihar.

The announcements come months ahead of the Assembly elections expected to be held in Bihar in October or November.

In June 2023, the Bihar government, led by Kumar, had scrapped an earlier domicile policy for recruiting government teachers. The decision had led to violent protests by job aspirants.

The state government had at the time defended the decision, arguing that the domicile clause was removed because it was not legally tenable, the Hindustan Times reported.

The decision on Monday comes nearly a month after the Bihar Cabinet made domicile status mandatory for candidates seeking to access the 35% reservation granted to women in state government jobs.

Last week, Kumar also announced that the honorariums paid to cooks preparing mid-day meals in schools, night guards in secondary and higher secondary schools, and physical education instructors would be doubled, according to the Hindustan Times.