The shortage of staff in government departments in Jammu & Kashmir in one way or other is hitting the work in government departments and consequently the delivery of public services in both Kashmir valley and Jammu division. To address the increasing intensity of shortage staff in government departments the Jammu & Kashmir Government in absence of a policy of manpower planning follows an adhoc policy of recruitments, and transfers in key government departments directly connected with the delivery of public services in Jammu & Kashmir. Experiences of manpower recruitments in Jammu & Kashmir show that filling sanctioned posts is not sufficient enough to reduce the staff shortage for the purposes of improving the working of government departments in presence of increasing complexities in the fast changing system of governance in Jammu & Kashmir like many states and union territories of the country. Staff shortage is particularly hitting the delivery of public services in key areas of governance like healthcare, education, Power, Irrigation and the likes. Since schools and colleges have resumed offline teaching after a gape of more than two years both the school and higher education departments are grappling with increasing challenges of teaching staff shortage in most of the schools and colleges across Jammu & Kashmir. While situation demands that teaching quality is not compromised in the initiatives taken by both the school and higher education departments for reducing the increasing challenges of teaching staff shortage in schools and colleges, the school education department has set a bad trend of replacing PG teachers deployed years back to Higher Secondary Schools for teaching key subjects from Class 9- Class 12. While PG teachers deployed with higher secondary schools for teaching higher classes for years together have acquired sufficient teaching experience in teaching higher classes in higher secondary schools, PG teachers deployed since last 15 days for the first time in their career to higher secondary schools are yet to acquire teaching experience required for teaching higher classes in higher secondary schools.
By all standards of understandabilities the policy of fresh deployments to replace the old ones and suspension of contractual engagement in higher secondary schools goes against the spirit of quality teaching in higher classes where student plan careers for their bright future in the fields of medicine and engineering.
For reducing the teaching staff shortage in higher secondary schools it would have been better for the government to engage Ph.D qualifiers of universities for teaching in higher secondary schools on contractual basis as was the past practice and precedence. Above all the fresh deployments of PG teachers from primary and middle schools is badly disrupting the teaching of lower middle and lower primary class in primary and middle schools. At the end of the day teaching experiences and higher qualifications are the only two suitable qualifications to be counted for teaching higher classes in both the higher secondary schools and as degree colleges. So by all standards of understandabilities the policy of fresh deployments to replace the old ones and suspension of contractual engagement in higher secondary schools goes against the spirit of quality teaching in higher classes where student plan careers for their bright future in the fields of medicine and engineering.
