STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Dogri Sanstha Jammu and Team Jammu, in a joint press conference, put forth the demand of rescinding and modifying a Government notification allotting only one position of Dogri teacher out of 748 total positions advertized covering all subjects and urged that Dogri be given its due place in school education system.
The press conference was addressed by Prof. Lalit Magotra, President of Dogri Sanstha and Zorawar Singh Jamwal, Chairperson of Team Jammu. They were accompanied by Inderjeet Kesar and Prof. Shashi Pathania, Vice Presidents of Dogri Sanstha Jammu respectively, and a large number of members of Team Jammu and Dogri writers. Prof. Magotra informed that recently, in a Government Notification No. 03-DSEJ of 2024 dated 20.06.2024 of the Director, School Education, Jammu 748 positions of temporary teachers were advertized. Out of these 748 positions, only one position of Dogri teacher was included in this list.
He further added that this is a burning proof of the apathy of the officials of the UT of J&K towards a language of J&K which is the mother tongue of a major chunk of the population of J&K, namely Dogras.This, in spite of the fact that Dogri has been declared as an official language of J&K, vide Lok Sabha bill dated September 22, 2020. Whereas it is the bounden duty of the officials of J&K to follow enthusiastically the mandate of this policy of the Government in letter and spirit, they are acting in exactly the opposite direction. The bill also envisages that the declared official languages will be used for official purposes of Union Territory and that the business in the J&K Legislative Assembly will be transacted in these official languages.
Instead of working for promotion, strengthening and empowering of Dogri to assume the responsibility of an official language, the officialdom of J&K appears to be hell bent on decimating this language. Dogras were expecting some plans and schemes of the Government for creating environment to boost Dogri and remove obstacles in the way of progress of Dogri, on the contrary, the activities of the officials in this regard have been dismal and disappointing. The best course to strengthen a language is through the education system. There are above 400 Higher Secondary Schools in the Jammu zone of J&K. It is a mockery that there are only six regular Dogri teachers in these schools, whereas 24 positions of Dogri teachers are lying vacant and there is no effort on the part of the officials to fill up these positions. And now, on top of that, only one temporary teacher’s position out of 748 total positions of teachers has been allocated to Dogri.
Zorawar Singh Jamwal stated that non creation of sufficient positions of Dogri teachers at School level will not only be detrimental for growth of Dogri but will have other very serious consequences as well. A large number of youngsters who hold degrees of Ph.D and Masters in Dogri or are studying Dogri find the chances of their future employability drastically cut down. Further, this policy will also dry up the flow of Dogri students from School to Colleges whereby making the positions of Dogri teachers in Colleges also redundant. This will be disastrous for the growth of the Dogri language as a whole.
It was urged upon the concerned authorities that this Notification be immediately modified by creating maximum number of positions of Dogri teachers so that Dogri is promoted through the education system and is enabled to take on the mantle of the official language of J&K.
