Education Department on verge of collapse: Sakina Itoo

Srinagar, Oct 28: Minister for Education Sakina Itoo on Tuesday said that Education Department in J&K was on the verge of collapse due to acute shortages of staff at multiple levels. She said the freeze on employment in education and health sector was "ruining" the the crucial departments.

Aiming guns at the dispensations that "ruled for the past 10 years", she said many schools and higher secondaries were underserved as the department did not have adequate employees to post in every educational institution. The Minister called the "freeze" on the employment in these key departments as "anti-people".

She informed the house that the J&K Government has given assent to remove the freeze on 50% of the vacancies. "Hon'ble CM Omar Abdullah has kindly assented to remove freeze from 50 percent of the vacancies in education department and these vacancies will be referred to recruiting agencies," she said.

The Minister was replying to allegations by BJP legislators regarding the discrimination in posting staff in far flung educational institutes. The BJP legislators also alleged that many of teachers and lecturers were posted away from home districts, in difficult access zones, for over three and a half years.

On the same note, MLA Gurez, Nazir Ahmed Gurezi also drew the attention of the house towards the shortage of lecturers in his constituency. "In Gurez, there is not a single science lecturer in the eight higher secondaries, and the system is being made to run on teachers borrowed from here and there," he said.

He lauded the Education Minister for announcing immediate recruitment drives in education sector.