JAMMU, FEBRUARY 10: Reacting sharply to the news item, “Nearly 80 % of Schools lack enough Subject Teachers” published in the section of paper, dated 9th Feb 2024, School Education Department Jammu and Kashmir, has refuted the claim and statistics given in the news item.
The SED in a statement clarified that there are 18723 Govt. Schools in Jammu and Kashmir as on date, out of which, 8966 are Primary Schools,7228 are Upper Primary, 1741 High Schools and 788 HSS Schools. 97116 Teachers have been placed in the Govt. Schools of Jammu and Kashmir, for teaching from the Pre-Primary to the Sr. secondary classes.
An official spokesperson of the department said, as per the recruitment made in the Schools, through Jammu and Kashmir Service Selection Board and RET Scheme of the Govt., No subject Specific teachers has been recruited or engaged.
“These are all general line Teachers which are capable of teaching Mathematics, Science, SST and Languages in the Schools,” spokesperson clarified.
The department claimed that the Pupil Teacher Ration in case of Primary School is 1:13, Upper Primary Schools is 1:9,in Secondary School it is 1:14 and at HSS level it is 1:30, compared to PTR of 26, 19, 17 and 27 at the Primary, Upper Primary, Secondary and Sr. Secondary respectively at the National level.
“There were some Schools in the Jammu and Kashmir, which were having single teacher but J&K was among the few States/UT to implement the School Complex system policy as mandated under NEP 2020”.
Under the Guidelines issued for School Complex System, 762 School Complexes have been formed in the UT of J&K and rationalization of Teachers has been made at different level, to ensure that, No single Teacher School exists in the UT, statement reads.
Spokesperson said the Unified District Information System (UDISE) for School Education launched by the Ministry of the School Education, has the fields of Science, Maths, SST and Language Teachers in the Schools, as such the Data is filled by the Teachers from the School Level to ensure the compliances and the data of the updated UDISE reflects the availability of more than 90 % teachers in Upper Primary Schools, in all the subjects, though they are competent and qualified to teach the subjects other than those reflected against them.
As such, It is clarified that, there is no dearth of Teachers in the Upper Primary Schools to teach any specific Subjects. However, the subject specific teachers are recruited at Higher Secondary Level and there was a deficiency of those Subject specific teachers in the beginning of the academic year 2023-24. In order to address that, the Govt. has engaged 1496 Cluster ResourceCoordinators, who are subject specific and have been deployed in the remote School, where there was shortage of Teachers.
It is further added that, the Govt. of Jammu and Kashmir is spending almost 18 Crores every year to strengthen the Libraries and the Library books have been provided in all the 18723 Schools from primary to Sr. Secondary level, for making student knowledge enriched about the general awareness, environment and other Health & hygienic Conditions, as envisaged in the Library Guidelines.
Spokesperson stated that efforts are also made to construct the special Library rooms, where the same doesn’t exist and 617 are library rooms are under construction in different schools.
He said the School Education Department has also recently conducted an Annual Transfer Drive, where more than 13000 Teachers were transferred on the basis of Zone formation as per the Transfer Policy.
“The transfers were made through an online mechanism in a very Transparent manner and Teachers have been posted in the schools, keeping students and enrolment in the schools as primary focus”.
He said, the School Education Department is committed to enhance the competency of the Teachers and a lot of stress is being laid on the training of teachers for their orientation to improve the learning outcomes of the students. Capacity building programmes/workshops/ Orientation/ Training Programme under TTAP, in 2023-24 stand attended by more than 40000 Teachers, wherein their orientation has been done.
