Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 6: Turning tables on the Commissioner/Secretary Education, BJP MLAs today alleged that he has made a mess of Education Sector in Jammu.
In the absence of principal opposition parties, several BJP legislators stood up from their seats demanding sacking of Commissioner/Secretary Education. The members alleged that the said bureaucrat has “made education sector of Jammu region defunct”.
“The Commissioner has taken away all the powers of Director School Education Jammu and he is one man army,” BJP’s Ravinder Raina told the House. “He should be removed and health of education sector be restored,” he said.
The BJP members said, “Urdu teacher has been sent to teach Chemistry and History teacher Maths; this is the situation.”
Minister of State for Education and BJP MLA, Priya Sethi after listening to the allegations justified the grievances of the members saying their grievances are genuine. She admitted that schools are in bad condition and in some schools for Botany lecturers the lecturers of mathematics have been posted. There is not teacher for Sanskrit students and all powers have been relegated to Commissioner Secretary while files are not routed through MoS, she added.
The issue was raised by BJP’s R S Pathania during Zero Hour. He expressed concern over the mess created in Education Sector in Jammu and alleged that in Middle Schools and High Schools the masters have not been posted. There is no consensus on various issues in the Department and raking up of fake degrees issue for regularization of RETs is turning to be a way to corruption, he added.
He was supported by his Party colleague, Ravinder Raina who also criticized the style of functioning of Commissioner/ Secretary Education.
Soon all BJP MLAs were on their toes in criticizing the mal functioning of Education Sector in Jammu due to highhandedness of one officer.
Raising the issue Pathania said that out of 123 lecturers 52 are vacant in his Ramnagar Constituency while out of 40 headmasters 14 posts are vacant, out of 426 masters 106 are vacant and out of 939 teachers 394 are vacant.
Taking strong view of the functioning of Commissioner/ Secretary Education, Pathania said SSA guidelines have been totally ignored rationalization of schools and formulation of Village Level Education Committees and the MLAs were not consulted as the bureaucrat was working in arbitrary manner.
He alleged Education Department has totally turned Kashmir Centric as for appointment of contractual teachers assessment was made on basis of need. But this assessment was only made in Kashmir and not in Jammu, he added.
He said in inter-district transfers teachers are transferred for six months in Jammu while in Kashmir the inter-district transfer orders are not time bound. This speaks volumes of discrimination, he added.
He said one of the greatest violations made by the Commissioner/ Secretary Education is that he appointed the son of his driver in Director RAMSA Office Jammu on daily wage basis in violation of standing rules.
The Speaker Kavinder Gupta while taking a serious note of it has also sought a reply from Government on the issue. Later, 27 MLAs of PDP and BJP have demanded half an hour debate on working of Education Department in the State tomorrow in the House.
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