Minister for School Education, Haj and Auqaf and Tribal Affairs Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali today assured that the Government is working on a solution to resolve the problems faced by the teachers working under centrally sponsored scheme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).The Minister expressed these views during a meeting held with the representatives of employees’ unions, including Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC), J&K Rehbar-e-Taleem (ReT) Form, SSA Teachers Association Forum.During the meeting, the employees’ representative expressed their gratitude to the Minister for not only listening to their problems but also forming a committee to redress them.The representatives acknowledged that this is for the first time a step in this direction to meet their demands has been taken.Assuring the Government’s seriousness towards resolving their issues, the Minister said, everyone from Chief Minister to Finance Minister and he himself is very keen to resolve their issues at an earliest.Giving the background of the problem, the Minister said usually regularization is done against a post. However, in SSA teachers’ case, they were hired under central sponsored SSA scheme in a mission mode.
Explaining the process, the Minister said to make the SSA teachers permanent the Government has to create around 40,000 posts for equal number of SSA teachers. He said regularization of such a large number of teachers will have huge financial implications on the State budget, so it needs to be thoroughly looked into by planning and finance departments before taking any decision.He informed that his entire staff is working tirelessly on all the possibilities to find a workable solution and he along with his secretary and other high-level officers would soon be travelling to New Delhi to meet the Ministry of Human Resource Development to seek all possible help from them in this regard.The Minister assured that the Government will take all the stakeholders, including employees’ union representatives on board before taking a final call.Refusing to give any timeframe, the Minister said regularization of SSA teachers is an issue of many years, which cannot be fixed in one night.The Minister said that in a democracy everyone has a right to protest to register their concern. However, when Government is already aware and is working to find a solution to the problem, there is no reason to hit the streets. He said it affects the education of children which is morally, professional and ethically wrong.He informed the committee formulated in this regard is working tirelessly and would soon come out with a solution.Secretary School Education Farooq Shah, Director School Education Kashmir (DESK) G N Itoo, Director SSA A R War, Chairman EJAC Abdul Qayoom Wani, Chairman J&K ReT Teachers Association Forum Farooq Ahmad Tantray, President SSA, Teachers Association Shah Fayaz, and other concerned were present in the meeting.