Despite the passage of over one year, the government decision to have a separate cadre of Education Administrative Services (EAS) in the school education department for J&K has seen any progress till date.
The decision to have separate EAS in the department was taken in June 2020 after the former J&K Lieutenant Governor (LG) G C Murmu while chairing a review meeting asked the department to formulate a concept note for establishing a separate administrative cadre for the department to have a separate academic and administrative expertise.
In wake of this, a six-member committee headed by Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) was constituted and entrusted to submit its report within two weeks to the administrative department.
“More than a year has passed since the committee was constituted but the government seems to have shelved the decision to have a SEA cadre in the department,” an official said.
The official said the decision, if implemented in letter and spirit, is expected to remove stagnation of the officers who have been deprived of their promotion for a long time in the department.
Notably, as per the existing rules of the department, the post of the Director or Joint Director has to be filled in by the person within the department. But the government deputes any KAS or IAS officers to fill the posts which deprive the employees of the department for their elevation to the level of joint director and director.
“Once the EAS cadre becomes effective in the department, the officials within the department will be adjusted at any administrative posts after proper screening by the Public Service Commission (PSC) or any other mechanism,” the official said.
This newspaper has carried a series of stories about the delay in the formulation of SEA cadre but the department seems to be in a deep slumber.
As per the existing system, the school education department gets employees on deputation from other departments to fill the vacancies in accounts and planning wing. The officers from district to division level are deputed from other departments.
“But the introduction of SEA cadre will enable the department to fill all these posts from within the department,” the official said.
He said the constituted in June 2020 convened a few meetings to deliberate on the issue but there was no headway in this decision beyond meetings.
“The much needed initiative seems to have been put at the back burner by the government for unknown reasons,” he said.
Notably, the National Education Policy (NEP) has also mentioned three service cadres which include Education Administrative Service, Education Academic Service and Teacher Education Service for the school education department.
Once the department will have all the three separate cadres, the teacher education will be a separate cadre which will be directly recruited and will undertake only training of teachers.
Also, this cadre will not be inter transferable but will have their separate cadre. Under this category there will be separate cadre for people in SCERT, DIETs, District Resource Persons (DRPs) and Cluster Resource Persons (CRPs) as well.
“EAS cadre will simply run the establishment and deal with the human resource management in the department while the education academic service will focus on overall academic activities in the department,” an official said.
Given the present circumstances wherein the department is overburdened with academics as well as with administrative works, the government should work on having SEA for the betterment of the department.
“It will not only remove the stagnation of officers but will also encourage them to work with utmost dedication during their tenure in the department,” the official said.
Principal Secretary School Education Department (SED), Bishwajit Kumar Singh when contacted feigned ignorance about the issue and said no such file was put up in the department.
“I have no idea about it as I was never informed about this development. No file was put up by the department in my office. I will look into the matter,” he said.