Teacher vacancies must be fulfilled to enhance quality of education in Kashmir
Last year, in 2023, the School Education Department (SED) constituted a high-level committee to oversee the promotions of in-service teachers through the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) for various cadres at the UT, divisional, and district levels, particularly for the promotion of teachers to the next cadre of lecturer posts. This initiative is a commendable and highly appreciated step taken by the SED.
Every department has a proper mechanism for promoting its employees. According to CSR provisions, each department should conduct DPCs twice a year—six-monthly DPCs. Timely conducting of these committees is essential. The then Chief Secretary, Arun Kumar Mehta, also emphasised the importance of timely promotions for service class employees and the need for updating and finalizing seniority lists.
In some departments, such as Revenue and Finance, there is a provision for employee promotions through departmental examinations to assess efficiency, work conduct, and integrity. However, in the School Education Department, promotions have traditionally been based solely on seniority. If there is currently no provision for departmental examinations within SED, then additional criteria for promotions should be established.
Recently, the SED took a bold step toward improving education quality by forming another high-level committee to conduct departmental examinations for promotions from teacher to lecturer. While this move is promising and aims to bring about revolutionary changes in the education sector, it will take time to formulate a definitive procedure for conducting these examinations.
To ensure fair and effective promotions for teaching faculty, the following criteria should be considered before conducting DPCs:
- Seniority alone should not be the determining factor.
- Promotions should also be awarded based on higher or additional qualifications, such as double PG, M. Phil, PhD, and NET/SET.
- The academic performance of teachers should be evaluated based on a three-year results statement.
- Teacher performance should be assessed through student feedback using the Samiksha app.
- Active participation of teachers in co-curricular activities and school management should be considered.
According to reliable sources from the SED, a significant number of lecturer posts have remained vacant for the past one to two years across various subjects. The breakdown of these vacancies is as follows:
- Education – 321
- Mathematics – 268
- English – 243
- Urdu – 239
- Physics – 191
- Political Science – 188
- Economics – 166
- Botany – 162
- Environmental Science – 161
- History – 140
- Chemistry – 136
- Hindi – 95
- Sociology – 87
- Geography – 56
- Commerce – 51
- Persian – 44
- IP/IT – 31
- Stenography – 24
- Computer Science – 23
- Philosophy – 22
- Functional English – 22
- Arabic – 19
- Statistics – 17
- Punjabi – 17
- Sanskrit – 16
- Kashmiri – 14
- Geology – 12
- Psychology – 9
- Islamic Studies – 8
- Home Science – 7
- Zoology – 157
Total: 3013 lecturer vacancies
There is an urgent and immediate need to fill these vacancies without further delay, as many higher secondary schools currently lack lecturer staff, and students are suffering as a result. It is hoped that the SED will address this matter and conduct timely DPCs, ensuring that students do not continue to suffer due to a lack of teaching staff. Additionally, timely promotions will provide relief to the teaching community, enabling them to focus on the well-being and education of their students.
By Rahi Firdous