STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Minister for Education Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari on Monday hinted at big announcement for education sector in the coming budget session by announcing that the government would refer 8700 more teacher vacancies to SSB to be advertised next month in addition to 2154 posts referred already to recruitment agency to meet dearth of staff in government schools.
Addressing teachers, students and senior functionaries of education department here at the annual day function of Government Girls High School Gandhi Nagar, the Minister reiterated government’s resolve to meet the targets set in the rolled-out roadmap to fill critical gaps in infrastructure and staff in the education sector. He said the Education Department is expecting some new initiatives to be announced by the Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu in the Budget 2018-19 for this key sector.
The function was also attended by Speaker Legislative Assembly, Kavinder Gupta and Minister of state for Education and Culture, Priya Sethi, Member Legislative Council, Vikram Randhawa the Secretary School Education, Farooq Ahmed Shah, Director School Education, Jammu, Ravinder Singh, Director RMSA Tufail Mattoo and Director SSA, A R War.
“We are tirelessly working on a well-defined roadmap to revamp education sector in the state which include consolidation of school infrastructure to meet the set standards at different levels and meet the staff strength in which the state is still lacking” he asserted. He said that despite critical gaps the school education department and teachers have shown great results in recent past.
However, he took a dig over some political parties for playing politics over certain issues despite not having made much progress while in remaining power for several years.
“I have no hesitation to say that the education sector has been continuously ignored over last seventy years by these people, but despite that they are playing politics whenever the department comes up with new reforms and policies” he regretted.
He said the education department and the teacher fraternity of which he is also a part at the moment is working with full dedication and giving out its best despite limited means in terms of infrastructure and staff.
Applauding the performance of the students, the Minister said time has come to dispel the notion about the government schools as government under the leadership of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is taking every possible step in imparting quality education.
He also applauded the teacher fraternity for putting up their best efforts to prepare students to face competitions. “We may not have uniform infrastructure in all Government schools, but our strength is our teachers which have no match in qualification and competence” he said and called upon them to put in more efforts to realize the goal of taking the education standard in government schools to new heights. He said government’s goal is to attract maximum enrollment and for that the teachers have to put in more efforts.