Srinagar, Feb 20: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Sunday underscored the need to keep education away from politics in Jammu and Kashmir, saying it is affecting the career of students.
“Let the political parties having different approaches with regard to political future of Kashmir realize the hard fact that education of our children cannot be allowed to be sacrificed in sequel to their conflicting approaches and entire society cannot be rendered illiterate. Therefore it is essential to de-link education from politics and keep it conflict neutral,” Omar said, addressing a function after laying foundation stone of Teachers Hostel and Auditorium at Bemina here.
In an apparent reference to separatists, Omar said: “some people who have sent their children outside state or abroad want to ruin the carrier of other innocent children. They are working actively to collapse the career of the students. Do we want an illiterate nation? How would they serve the society when they will confine the students to their homes?” Omar asked.
 “The recent KAS results are clear proof of the fact that turmoil affected preparedness of our students while facing the competitive examination,” he said.
 Asking teachers to fulfill their obligations with devotion and enthusiasm, Omar advised them not to allow political influence to prevail in academics. “Our future lies in the hands of teachers .It is not in my hands how our future would be. It is duty of teachers to shape our future,” he said.
 He congratulated the Education Department for obtaining positions in 12th class examinations. However, he acknowledged that there are schools with zero result.
 “There are schools where there are 200- 300 students, but only two, three teachers. There are some schools where number of students is less than teachers,” he said.
 About the sixth pay commission, Omar said that Government doesn’t want confrontation with employees. “But we don’t have money to pay their full arrears. We have already formulated roadmap for the payment of 50 percent arrears. Except three to four states, no other state government has paid arrears to its employees .Our neighbor Himachal Pradesh has only paid Rs 10000 to its employees .We want to pay full arrears, but we don’t have resources for the purpose,” he said.
 Elaborating he said the state’s salary and pension bills pile up to Rs 9000 and Rs 2100 crores respectively in return to revenue of Rs 3500 crores. “I don’t want to keep employees in dark and I am not closing door for them .If we will pay arrears out of our budget then we would have no money to pay salary. We are negotiating with Centre over the issue,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 20 Feb 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
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