Teachers of Jammu Kashmir have expressed their displeasure over the undue delay in their promotions.The careers of over 6,500 Teachers in School Education Department are in disarray due to over 8-years delay in promotions, this was stated by Devraj Thakur State President All Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh Teachers Federation sft. to Akhil Bhartiya Rashtriya Shakshik Mahasangh (AJKLTF/ABRSM) and contended this has led to “humiliation” and is “demoralising”, while briefing to Media at Udhampur today .
“Teachers are considered the backbone of school Education operations as they are involved in the nation building and shaping the carers of millions of students,repair-maintenance of education institutions, fixing and monitoring of institutions affairs, MDM and other operational aspects of the education system#, Thakur added
Thakur said, “Teachers of Jammu Kashmir are anguished over willful delay of their promotions. Over the past few years, we have made multiple submissions to the Government and higher authorities over the issue and have highlighted how the delay in promotions since 2014 had not only hampered the career progression of these teachers but has also led to humiliation.
“Some teachers are working in junior scale for more than Eight years due to delay of DPCs . Many teachers have retired/going to retire in the junior scale itself.The stagnation due to the delay of DPC is causing humiliation and is demoralising. To get rid of this pathetic situation, the only solution is to conduct DPC on time,” stated by Thakur to media here today.
Thakur stated that the present state of affairs is a “great dampener of self-esteem and self-actualisation which are considered to be the most essential needs of any human being in his professional endeavour”.
Thakur blamed the “slackness/poor involvement” of officers at every level in not providing data for DPCs in time according to the calendar provided by the Department of Personnel and Training for convening timely DPCs which, he alleged, has never been adhered to.
“Instructions were given to make the panels for promotions available prior to the actual occurrence of vacancies. It has also been said in those circulars to fix the responsibility of the officials concerned for the delay in case of non-compliance of preparations of DPCs as per DOPT calendar,”Thakur stated.
The AJKLTF Leadership have also highlighted that while promotions were granted to the zonal education officers, principals Lecturers, Headmasters and masters, this year, the same was delayed for eight years for teachers. Thakur further demanded an early convening of a meeting of the Departmental Selection Board to consider the delayed promotion cases of teachers. The promotion of teachers was being delayed as the meeting of the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) has not been convened after a lapse of over eight years.
The last meeting of DPC for Teachers’ was held on Dec, 2013. After that, several meetings were held but the promotion cases of Teachers’ were turned down while the teachers of other setups under the Directorates of Education got promotions.
Thakur alleged that, “The promotion meetings for other setups are convened timely and promotions granted except for the promotion of teachers which is a discriminatory act. The authorities are keeping a mum on the issue and no policy has been framed for promotion of teachers set up so far.”.
“The promotion of teacher is being unnecessarily delayed on the one or the other pretext. There is no justification for making our teachers suffer merely on account of inaction or delay on the part of the authorities for not convening DPC timely.We have filed several representations in this regard which could not fetch any result. Such a policy of the authorities has mounted the anxiety among the Teachers community because, on account of delay in convening the meeting of DPC, they lost their promotion which resulted in financial loss to them and a massive setback.”
He further said: “If Teachers are promoted to the rank of Masters, it will have a trickle-down effect.Justice and fair play demand that teachers should not be made to suffer on account of the delay on the part of authorities in convening the meeting of DPC”.
Thakur said, “Teachers are the backbone of the entire education set up and they should immediately be promoted. The meeting to award time scale is also due for a long time. Teachers should not be made to suffer merely on account of departmental lapse of holding the meeting of time scale,” he said while demanding an early convening of such time scale meeting.