Eligibility Criteria for Employment

J&K being largely dependent on agricultural resources is vulnerable to various economical and employment problems. So there are bleak chances of employment for the technical, non-technical job aspirants and research scholars in the public or private sector. Drastic change in rules/regulations and educational policies from time to time affected education system and selection criteria especially with respect to educational qualification, experience, category quota of various jobs.

Advertisements of posts whenever made by the recruiting agencies did not meet the expectations of the job aspirants. Abnormal procedural delay, exorbitant fee with separate application for each post deprived the poor and highly educated candidates of their legitimate right till they crossed the prescribed age limits, thus forced to stand on footpath for their livelihood. Although number of Degree Colleges, Universities and other technical institutions were established but the same proved useless without the technical/non-technical staff and infrastructure required for the purpose. Thus unemployment created a great void between the educated youth and the job providers.

With the formation of Government under a democratic setup, there is a ray of hope for the  unemployed educated youth. The Hon’ble Minister for Health and Medical Education, Social Welfare and Education has recently announced the recruitment of 575 +2 lecturers of various streams in Education Department and other various posts in Health & Medical Education Department through JKPSC/JKSSRB.

This earned applause for the present dispensation. It is hoped that the concerned recruiting agency will ease the criteria for submission of application forms  holding P.G. Degree with 60% in the relevant subject as mandatory and points are fixed for additional qualification viz.,SET/NET/B.Ed/JRF/Phd and Postdoc, after conducting the written test/Viva Voce as per previous practice.

This, in order that merit is maintained and every aspirant could participate in competition otherwise PhD student without B.Ed being qualified will not be able to prove his mettle and a student with B.Ed  without any higher qualification will not be able to do justice with his profession. The meritorious selectees will certainly do justice with their profession and will prove beneficial for the future generation in their respective subjects.

It is also to mention here that there is sheer injustice with the skewed allotment of seats to various categories. Such criteria should have been on population basis but the same is reverse. Only about 30% is left for Open Merit Category and the rest distributed among other categories. And after the selection process they get more than that, when the category candidate gets high merit he is adjusted against the open merit quota. Thus bleak chances remain for the open merit candidates and it affects badly the selection of meritorious candidates. This deserves attention on priority by the concerned authorities so as to maintain justice in the selection process.

Ghulam Mohammad Wani is a retired teacher.