By: Ahmad Shabir
Srinagar: After the merger of 700 government schools recently, the School Education Department has started the process to identify the teachers and fix the responsibility for decline in student enrollment in the schools finally resulting in their merger.
The SEDs move to fix the responsibility for ‘devastating enrolment’ in the schools after the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) received a complaint that the buildings of around 2000 schools clubbed earlier were left unattended by the department. With no watch and ward provided by the department, most of these buildings, the complainant had said, had turned into haunted houses.
After receiving the complaint, the ACB asked the School Education Department to order a probe into the matter.
Deputy Secretary to the Government in the Education Department , Umesh Sharma in a letter recently asked the Directorate of School Education to investigate the matter and fix the responsibility on the officials responsible for declining roll in the schools.
“It is requested to investigate / enquire in the instances and fix responsibility on the officials who have brought the department to disrepute by devastating the enrolment in schools which finally ended in merging of schools and turned the valuable assets /infrastructure into abandoned buildings,” the advisory issued by the Deputy Secretary reads.
The advisory clearly mentions that the responsibility be fixed on those RReTs who have been instrumental to merge such schools where the enrollment waned after their regularisation , shall be treated as per law for such acts.
In the communication, the copy of which is in possession of the Precious Kashmir, the administrative department has asked the education authorities to treat the matter as most urgent.
Following the directions from the deputy secretary , the DSE in March Kashmir forwarded the communication to the chief education officer Srinagar asking him to enquire into the matter and furnish the report.
“A copy of the communication received from the administrative department on March 7 is forwarded to CEO Srinagar (ALL) with strict directions to get the matter enquired and furnish detailed factual report in light of the advisory of ACB and instructions conveyed by the administrative department in the matter within ten days positively,” Departmental Vigilance Officer wrote in its reply to the administrative department.
However, it was not known whether the communication in this regard has been forwarded to the CEOs of other districts or the investigations with regard to the issue will be confined to Srinagar only.