Education minister Syed AltafBukhari on Monday hinted that “big announcements” for education sector would me made during the budget session beginning here on Tuesday. He also said that the government would refer 8,700 more teacher vacancies to the service selection board (SSB) for advertisement next month, in addition to 2,154 posts already referred to it.
Addressing teachers, students and senior functionaries of the education department here at the annual day function of government girls high school Gandhi Nagar, the minister reiterated the government’s resolve to meet the targets set in its roadmap to “fill critical gaps in infrastructure and staff in the education sector.”
He said that the education department is expecting some new initiatives to be announced by finance minister HaseebDrabu in the budget 2018-19 for “this key sector.” The function was attended by speaker Kavinder Gupta and minister of state for education and culture, PriyaSethi; member legislative council, Vikram Randhawa, secretary school education department, Farooq Ahmed Shah; director school education Jammu, Ravinder Singh; director RMSA TufailMattoo and director SSA, AR War.
“We are tirelessly working on a well-defined roadmap to revamp the education sector which includes consolidation of school infrastructure to meet the set standards at different levels and meet the staff strength where the state is still lacking,” Bukhari said.
He said that despite these critical gaps, the school education department and teachers have “shown great results in the recent past.” However, he took a dig over some political parties for what he called playing politics over certain issues despite not having made much progress while remaining in power for several years.
“I have no hesitation to say that the education sector has been continuously ignored over the last 70 years by these people, but despite all this, they are playing politics whenever the department comes up with new reforms and policies,” he said.
He said that the education department and the teacher fraternity are working with “full dedication and giving their best despite limited infrastructure and staff.”He said that of late, the government-run schools are doing fairly well in all fields.