The freeze on recruitment in the education department is shattering the dreams of thousands of scholars

The administration of J&K has decided to make sure that the highly qualified degree holders of the UT remain in depression and face the punishment for being the most educated class in society. On the one side the doors of the education department are being shut for them since years now, and on the other side, the opportunities in others sectors are shrinking due to economic slowdown. The worst side of the story is that J&K might be the only UT where highly educated students are being punished for acquiring higher education, by barring them from applying for lower level posts such as Class-IV and alike. It seems we are living in some other planet away from earth where rationality has no place.
Since 2000-2001, successive regimes introduced the scheme of SSA and employed thousands of candidates. One more scheme, RAMSA, was launched in 2009. The appointees worked with zeal to serve the purpose for which they were employed. Later on, these schemes were stopped, and in 2018 it was decided to accommodate the appointees in the department through 100% departmental promotion and freeze the direct recruitment in the education department till all of these get absorbed in the department as Grade-II and Grade-III teachers. This decision felt like a nightmare for thousands of degree holders who had invested decades on their education with the aim to serve society by getting employed in the education sector. Today, thousands of M.Phil., PhD, M.Ed. and other degree holders are on the verge of getting overage. They are facing depression, mental health issues, drug addiction issues and whatnot. These degree holders which are cream of the society are paying the price of follies of previous administrators. Although this author is not against the regularisation of SSA teachers, who had to struggle for years to get their due, but the government could have applied some other formula to absorb them.
Although the issue was taken up with officials of the UT from time to time but no redress has taken place. Recently, the Advisor to J&K Lieutenant Governor, Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar, said the issue will be examined. Respected LG Manoj Sinha is requested to kindly intervene in this matter so that the issue is timely redressed, brain drain could be prevented, and this fertile section of scholars and doctoral degree holders does not go waste.

—The writer is a research scholar in Economics at CUTN. [email protected]

Aamir Ahmad Teeli