Riyaz Bhat
Srinagar, Mar 10 : The government Monday said that at least 4,358 schools in Jammu and Kashmir have been merged with the nearby institutions under the rationalisation scheme.
In response to a question by MLA Rajiv Jasrotia, Education minister Sakina Itoo, as per news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said that among the closed or merged 4,358 schools, 1,274 institutions are from Jammu region and 3084 from Kashmir region.
The government said that the highest number of closed or merged schools in the Kashmir division were reported from Baramulla district and in the case of the Jammu region, the highest number of closed schools were reported from the Jammu district respectively.
About the criteria followed and adopted by the authorities to merge such institutions, the minister said those schools functioning in the same vicinity or those having rented or no building were merged with the nearby institutions.
It also said that those schools with zero and less enrolment were also merged with the nearby institutions.
“The surplus teachers are deployed and rationalised as per the actual need of the area or zone or district,” the minister said.
In the meantime, the education minister in a reply to the question regarding vacancies of teaching posts in the school education department said that in Jammu division 1665 master posts were lying vacant.
It also said that 2218 lecturer posts and 402 headmaster posts were also lying vacant in the Jammu division. Besides, 40 principal posts were also vacant in the region.
The education minister said, “All the vacancies of teachers have been frozen in terms of SAC Decision in 2018 for transition of RRETs into Teacher Grade-II. As such no new recruitments could be made against the posts of teachers for the last 5 years.”
Similarly, in the Kashmir region, the government said that 1671 master posts were lying vacant. “1957 lecturer posts and 300 headmaster posts were also lying vacant in the Kashmir division.”—(KNO)
