Higher secondary school education is staring at a crisis as the service period of more than 1000 contract teachers ended on June 30.
The government is to yet to decide on either extending theirservices or hiring new teachers even though the current acaemic session isunderway.
“The students at higher secondary level will suffer if anydecision is not taken,” said a principal of a higher secondary school on thecondiditon of anonymity.
The school education department had to hire new timecontract teachers in February but couldn’t because the model code of conductfor elections was in force. The code bars any recruitments during election periodbecause the ruling dispensation might use it to its advantage. Therefore, theservices of about 1000 teachers who had been working in schools during 2018were re-hired till June 30.
“The model code ended in the last week of May but thedepartment didn’t do anything. The process for fresh hiring should have beencompleted in June itself,” an education official said.
As per official figures, there are around 414 highersecondary schools (HSS) in Kashmir where almost 2000 posts of lecturers havebeen vacant The government has been hiring subject-wise teachers on contractbasis for a fixed time to overcome this shortage of permanent teachers.
The situation became difficult after the school educationdepartment terminated the services of over 500 subject specific teachersrecruited under Samagra (erstwhile RMSA) scheme in the department.
In more than 100 higher secondary schools in Jammu also, thedepartment has failed to fill the vacant posts of lecturers till date.
“If we go by the official orders, then the candidates don’thave to continue from Monday but it will lead to massive crises in highersecondary schools. Unfortunately, government has not come up with any decisionso far,” an official said.
Director school education Kashmir (DSEK) Muhammad YounisMalik said the government was aware about the issue.
“But our directorate has not received any directions fromthe administrative department regarding the matter,” Malik said.