J&K School Education department has revealed that around 400 lecturers were working on non-teaching assignments in District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) for the past many years.
“They are idly parked in 20 DIETs for years, on political considerations and flimsy medical grounds,” said Principal Secretary, School Education department, Asgar Samoon.
He said the department will replace the present faculty in DIETs with “hard working” faculty. “They will be redeployed in 777 Higher Secondary Schools across J&K,” Samoon said.
DIET is a nodal agency of the department for providing academic resources and research support at district level for success of various programs undertaken at elementary education level.
There is a sanctioned strength of around 15 lecturer posts, five to seven posts of head of departments (Principal rank post) and other staff for each institute.
“The department is working out a plan to reshuffle the staff in all DIETs as the government is likely to set up SCERT in J&K for which the DIETs need to be refurbished and revamped completely. DIETs will have to play an important role in the education sector post establishment of SCERT,” said an official.
In 2019, the school education department had decided to post only “promising human resource” in the DIETs and State Institute of Education (SIE) Kashmir.
The initiative was taken following outcry over the selective postings of some masters and lecturers in these premier institutes for prolonged periods, in violation of norms. But the initiative was later shelved for unknown reasons.