Avtar Bhat
JAMMU, Feb 20: Government will make right to education a fundamental right in the State and in this connection the bill will be introduced in State Assembly during the current session.
Stating this in State Assembly here, today while speaking on the annual grants of Education Ministry, Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand said the Cabinet memo for the bill has been prepared. The Government of India has already made the right to Education a Fundamental Right and the bill has gone beyond the scope of Central law on free education and State specific provisions have been incorporated while drafting the bill, he added.
He also announced that the Government is working on framing the policy draft on education and same will be tabled in the Assembly during the next session at Srinagar and then approved by the Cabinet.
Maintaining that the Government was working on reorganization of Education Department in the State, the Deputy Chief Minister said that CEOs will be from academic side and two posts of Directors will be created instead of one. One will look after administration and another will look after education, he added.
He said in Jammu region the Government faced difficulty in finding out the Urdu knowing people for the posts of Patwaris in Revenue and Munshis in Police departments. To overcome this difficulty the Urdu will be taught up to Matric level in every school, he added.
The Deputy Chief Minister said the teachers with good results will be rewarded while those whose performance will not be satisfactory will face action under law.
Tara Chand said to overcome the shortage of teaching staff in the schools, 12000 posts of teachers have been referred to recruiting agencies in the State and in the coming days the problem will be overcome.
Candidly admitting that the results in Government schools are very poor in comparison to private schools, the Deputy Chief Minister said the main reason for it is that there is dearth of teachers in Government schools and to over come this number of steps were already taken by the Education Department.
He said punitive action will be taken against those who took benefit of Sarav Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) schemes and laid foundation of schools and fled.
He said to arrest the trend of drop outs in schools, 10,000 dropouts were brought to schools again this year.
Later speaking on the annual grants of his Ministry, Minister of Higher Education, Mohammed Akbar Lone said that Kashmir University (KU) will not be allowed to function as an institute of anti India, “anti Government and illegal activities.”
The Minster, while referring to a point raised by independent MLA, Engineer Rashid in this regard said that apart from political activities the VC of University can allow any one to use conference hall provided it is not “anti Government or illegal.”
Maintaining that there was shortage of 1800 posts in colleges, he said earlier recruitment process was started but some people went to court. Now after the directives of court the notification has been issued and the recruiting agencies are soon going to fill up these 1800 posts.
The Minister said education policy should not be subservient to Union Government but go its own way and maintain the State’s own tradition.
He announced that efforts will be made to open new colleges in all those areas where Chief Minister has made a commitment.
Mr Lone also termed the shifting of Jammu Engineering College a big achievement. He said two women degree colleges will also be opened at Samba and Ramgarh.
The Minister assured the members who demanded degree colleges in their respective areas that new colleges will be opened in those areas which fulfill the prescribed norms in this regard.
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