Poor coordination among officials leads to teacher shortage in Kashmir schools

Srinagar, Dec 15: The lack of coordination and communication between the officers of the education department at zonal and district level has left the primary and middle schools teacher deficient.

The move tells upon the academic excellence of the students in the educational institutions upto upper primary level.

For the last few years, the education department has adopted a policy to depute subject specific teachers (PG degree holders) from Middle and primary schools to high and higher secondary schools to overcome the dearth of teachers in these institutions.

However, after the engagement of Cluster Resource Coordinators (CRC) by the department against the vacant positions of the lecturers, the department issued clear cut instructions to the officers to relieve the subject specific teachers and allow them to join their original place of postings.

But despite the passage of over five months, the cluster heads are not relieving these subject specific teachers which has left the primary and middle schools teacher-deficient.

An official said that despite hiring of around 748 CRCs this year, the cluster heads have not relieved all the teachers to their original schools.

"Now the schools have been closed for winter vacations but the primary and middle schools suffered a lot during the current academic session as the schools were understaffed," an official said.

As already reported by this newspaper, the department earlier picked the PG teachers and masters from primary and middle schools to overcome the dearth of teaching staff in other schools.

Even if the teachers have submitted several representations for their repatriation to the schools, the officials have not relieved them till date.

One such example is of district Kupwara where the subject specific teachers are not yet repatriated to their original schools.

The Chief Education Officer (CEO) Kupwara in November ordered repatriation of teachers to their original places of posting and in view of the expiration of the validity of these rationalisation and  deployment orders issued for subject-specific teachers to Higher Secondary Schools from time to time.

All rationalisation and deployment orders for subject-specific masters and teachers including time table arrangements to secondary or higher secondary schools issued by the office and other subordinate offices shall be deemed cancelled two days prior to the commencement of winter vacation, as and when notified by the Government," reads an order issued by the CEO Kupwara.

In the order, the CEO said the masters and teachers will return to their original places of posting after the culmination of the given stipulated time period.

"Concerned Drawing and Disbursing Officers are directed to transfer the attendance records of these masters and teachers to their original places of posting through JK Attendance Portal," the order reads.

However on December 10 of 2024, the order issued on November 30 of 2024 was kept in abeyance by the CEO Kupwara.

"The Order issued vide this office on November 30, 2024 is hereby kept under abeyance with immediate effect till necessary approval is accorded from the competent authority," reads an order issued on December 10, 2024.

An official said the administrative department in July issued instructions to the CEOs and other subordinate offices to repatriate the teachers to their original place of postings. "Even in many districts, some teachers were repatriated and allowed to join their original place of postings," the official said.

Recently, the Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) G N Itoo, soon after assuming charge issued instructions to all the CEOs, Cluster Heads and ZEOs to work in coordination to ensure good and effective administration in every institution.