The School Education Department (SED) is mulling to take up the matter of recruitment of special educators with the Government of India.
The move comes after the Supreme Court (SC) issued guidelines to all the States and UTs to recruit special educators in schools.
Talking to Greater Kashmir, Principal Secretary SED Bishwajit Kumar Singh said they will discuss the matter with the Government of India and seek release of funds for the component.
“It will not be possible to provide the funds for this component under our budget so will take it up with the Government of India and seek funds for it,” he said.
Notably, there are around 5000 specially-abled students enrolled in government schools for which the department has availability of only 70 to 80 special educators.
“Now that the guidelines have been issued by SC so we may have to double the number or go beyond that. But we won’t be able to provide salaries to such a huge number of special educators out of our own budget,” he said.
He said they have included it as one of the components in the Annual plan budget and will be taken up in the upcoming Project Approval Board (PAB) meeting with the Government of India.
“As of now we manage the salaries of 70 to 80 special educators but once we have more teachers we will need more funds. So we will first seek funds from GoI,” he said.
Notably, the aspirants of special educators have also pressed for their recruitment as special educators in SED saying that barring J&K all states implemented SC guidelines for recruitment of special educators.
“We approached the administrative department and the Directorate a number of times but in vain,” the aspirants said.
They urged the SED to advertise the posts of special educators for the recruitment of eligible candidates in light of Supreme Court directions.