Avinash Azad
In the absence of an elected government since June 2018, Jammu and Kashmir’s school education system has been reduced to a skeletal, privatized mockery under bureaucratic rule, a damning Assembly exchange revealed on Monday.
Responding to MLA Ramban Arjun Singh Raju’s probing questions, the J&K administration laid bare a chilling reality: frozen teacher recruitment, stagnant school upgrades, and a reliance on temporary fixes have left the region’s 18,723 government schools teetering on collapse, even as a new coalition government assumes power after years of administrative inertia.
Raju demanded specifics on school staffing and infrastructure. The government reported 8,943 primary, 7,255 middle, 1,744 high, and 781 higher secondary schools, manned by 78,271 teachers—including Cluster Resource Coordinators (CRCs). Yet, since 2019, no contractual lecturers have been hired, with only 1,496 CRCs engaged in 2024-25 at Rs 25,000 monthly, a stopgap measure expiring March 31, 2025. Admitting a teacher shortage, the government blamed a 2018 State Administrative Council (SAC) decision freezing general teacher posts to convert Regularized Rehbar-e-Taleem (RReTs) into Grade-II/III roles—a policy strangling fresh recruitment for six years.
Financial constraints? None calculated, the government shrugged, as all vacancies remain frozen. Upgrades? Zero schools have climbed to higher levels in the past two years, with no plans ahead, citing “huge financial resources” and a focus on “consolidation” over expansion. Even Middle School Kabi, approved for high school status in 2019-20, languishes without classes due to pending administrative nods.
This is bureaucracy’s legacy: a system starved of vision, outsourcing education’s future to temporary hires while students and teachers bear the brunt. The new government inherits a crisis—it must act, or watch J&K’s schools crumble further.
