Despite gilding the pill by the state administration, majority of departments seem as if under a spell of non performance in Jammu and Kashmir. Take the case of one of the most important departments – that of Education Department, it will require a ream to enumerate where and how much commiserative its functioning was. While the Schools are equipped with the best qualified and handsome salaries drawing teaching staff, the roll of the students is abysmally low. In many instances, surprisingly teachers are more than the students and making the cost analysis of running such school; it is totally a gnawing squandering of public funds. Each and every Rupee spent out from the public funds must bring in increasing return of gains and if there are a good number of students on the rolls in a school and the teachers work hard in imparting the knowledge, it is the most profitable venture.
A School also means a reasonably good ambiance with reasonable required essential facilities like lighting, drinking water, wash rooms, laboratories, computer labs, playgrounds besides well qualified and dedicated teaching staff. Unless there are heaps of deficiencies in one or the other form in these basic requirements of our schools both in urban and rural areas, why should PILs be filed in courts to seek judicial intervention, is the moot question. The intent behind these PILs is facing impediments from those who are required to set right the areas where deficiencies of different hue are found out in the State run schools.
The state high Court, on numerous occasions, has passed not only varying directions but expressed displeasure too many a time, over non compliance by the hierarchy of the management of School Education in Jammu and Kashmir and sought the intervention of the Chief Secretary. Last year, All J&K Ladakh Teachers Federation filed a PIL seeking directions to the State for framing policy for maintaining proper student -teacher ratio in schools without any discrimination and overcoming of deficiency in infrastructure for imparting proper education to the students. Not only this, there was no definite well devised transfer policy adopted in respect of transferring of teachers which are made in such a casual way by the Education Department that in many schools the number of teachers actually exceeded the number of children. The randomness and ambiguity of the exercise of effecting transfers of the teaching staff seem to be in a mix perhaps to facilitate the blue eyed ones to remain either at hometown or reach nearer. The other face of such a flawed transfer policy is that those schools which are situated at far off distances remain deprived of adequate number of teachers thereby depriving the students of their fundamental right to education.
The PIL also mentions about the abject condition of the infrastructural levels of majority of schools particularly in the rural areas and that virtually no steps were taken by the concerned authorities in that direction. Last year in December the then Chief Justice had granted three weeks time to the School Education Department for filing status report on the points raised in the PIL. These directions of the Court were not taken with the required quantum of seriousness by those who helmed the School Education Department despite knowing the consequences of disregarding the court directives. It is because of this aspect that parents choose private schools for their children knowing fully that the available talent in the Government schools in respect of the faculty members was far superior to the private schools but the latter had better infrastructure facilities and also the level of coaching on account of hard work put in by their teachers. There, performance was linked to their continuity in service as against the contrary in Government schools. It is hoped that the situation in respect of the deficiencies in managing Government schools will attract preferred attention of the State Education Department.
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