Srinagar, June 2: The Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL), Ministry of Education (MoE) has asked the J&K School Education Department to adopt a “transparent” transfer policy to improve the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) in government schools.
The MoE has also directed the department to fill the vacant position at an earliest.As per the official document, the directions were given by the DSEL while considering the Annual work Plan and Budget (AWP&B), 2023-24 under Samagra Shiksha for the J&K UT. “The J&K UT should have a transparent transfer policy so that it should improve the PTR in schools and vacant positions should be filled at the earliest,” the official document reads.
The remarks have been issued at a time when the SED has put on hold the annual transfers of teachers, masters and lecturers from the past one year. The reshuffle of teaching staff was supposed to be done through Annual Transfer Drive (ATD), but the department has not issued any transfer order from last one year. This year, the SED again started the exercise for inviting online applications from teachers for their transfers but the process is yet to be completed.
The MoE has stressed on filling of vacant positions as there are over 3000 positions vacant in the School Education Department for years together. Stressing on having a transfer policy, the MoE while referring to 2021-22 UDISE data has stated that J&K has 806 (six percent) at primary and 40 at upper primary level schools with zero enrolment.”UT is urged to think and take necessary decisions to minimize it at the earliest,” the official document reads.
The Union Ministry has also stated that as per 2021-22 UDISE data J&K has 2328 (18) single teacher schools at primary level which is much higher than the National Average of 10 percent. “So UT is requested to minimize it on a mission mode to come below the national average,” the document reads. The remarks have been given by MoE at a time when the J&K SED has clubbed thousands of schools with meager or zero enrollment. The process was carried out under rationalisation of schools.
“While the schools with meagre or zero enrolment are merged with nearby schools but their names still reflect as separate schools on UDISE data that is why MoE has issued these instructions,” an official told Greater Kashmir. The J&K SED has been asked to increase the enrolment percentage of children studying at Secondary level.”J&K UT would need to see where these five lakh children are going and focus on improving the enrolment percentage of children at government schools and strategize to attract children towards government schools at the secondary level,” the official document reads.