The school education department has delayed posting principals in over 100 headless higher secondary schools even months after their promotion was ordered.
A group of senior lecturers whose promotion was cleared overfour months ago said the department has delayed their posting as principals inschools for unknown reasons.
“Around 90 senior lecturers were promoted to the level ofhigher secondary principals. But we are waiting for our postings. Around 140higher secondary schools are headless from past several months,” a lecturerfrom among a group told Greater Kashmir, as others nodded in agreement.
The higher secondary schools are headless at a time whenpreparations are on for holding the important golden test of class 10th and12th students, likely to tell up on their performance.
“These headless schools are manned by other officials ofequivalent rank as their additional charge. It is not humanly possible tomanage two jobs at one time. The department should avoid this adhocism and postpermanent principals for these higher secondary schools,” an official ineducation department said.
It has been observed in recent years that the adhocism inthe higher secondary schools has hampered the academic performance of thestudents in the class 10th and 12th exams.
In annual 2018 exams, around 44 out of 58 headless highersecondary schools (HSS) in Kashmir performed poorly throwing a major challengefor the department to plug the loopholes.
“But it seems that the department has not learnt any lesson.Instead of addressing the issues, the number of headless schools has gone up tomore than 100 in Kashmir alone,” the official said.
The number of headless schools in Kashmir valley has alsoincreased after many principals were elevated as chief education officers(CEOs) and principals for district institute of education training (DIET).
“The move left higher secondary schools headless for whichthe promotion was granted to senior lecturers as higher secondary schoolprincipals. But their posting is awaited despite the passage of four months,”the official said.
The principals said the department was attributing the delayin issuing posting orders to the imposition of MCC in J&K state ahead ofthe recently concluded general elections.
“But the department should have completed the file workduring the MCC period so that orders would have been issued by now. The MCC waslifted on May 23 in J&K state but the department is still delaying ourposting,” a principal said.
Director school education Kashmir (DSEK), Muhammad YounisMalik, didn’t respond to repeated calls seeking his comments about the delay inthe postings of principals.