Unfortunately Education Minister Chowdhry Zulfikar courted an unwanted controversy over clubbing of schools and fortunately Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti very rightly rolled back the order of the education minister. Even teachers and the administration of the school education department admit the fact that the only good decision taken by Nayeem Akhter as Education Minister was the clubbing of schools. Perhaps the Education Minister not been wisely advised on the clubbing of schools before and even without taking advice from the officers of his department the minister could have himself thought about the implications of the decision he took in haste . Since the complaints of staff shortage and the student enrollment in schools were properly addressed only by the clubbing of schools ordered by Nayeem Akhter as Education Minister the new Education Minister had no institutional or administrative compulsion to rescind Akhter’s order on clubbing of schools. Instead of rolling back Akhter’s decision on clubbing of schools the new education minister should have put in his all efforts to resolve the issue of timely disbursement of salaries to SSA teachers numbering around 40,000 across Jammu & Kashmir. Delinking salaries of 40,000 teachers from Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan SSA is a huge challenge for the new education minister keeping in view the huge financial implications in resolving the issue.
An unwise decision of the new education minister has been wisely withdrawn by the Chief Minister herself and interventions of Chief Minister in such policy decisions of her ministers would surely sent out a strong message of accountability .
Forget about the resolution of the salary issue of the SSA teachers the new education minister had virtually invited a huge controversy by needlessly rolling back Akhter’s decision on clubbing of schools. Had Chief Minister not rolled back the order of the new education minister on clubbing of schools thousands of teachers and students would have hit streets after their displacement from the clubbed schools. An unwise decision of the new education minister has been wisely withdrawn by the Chief Minister herself and interventions of Chief Minister in such policy decisions of her ministers would surely sent out a strong message of accountability .
