Principal Secretary, Finance, Navin K Choudhary, today chaired a meeting of the State Committee set up to address the issues of SarvaShikhsha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers working in different areas of J&K.During the meeting, Secretary, School Education, Ajit Sahu made a presentation on the roadmap being worked out by the School Education Department for addressing the issues of the Education Department teachers, including regularization of existing General Line Teachers and SSA teachers, and their promotions.Sahu briefed the Finance Secretary about the measures taken by the School Education Department, including a proposal for changing recruitment rules, stopping fresh recruitment and promotions of ReTs in a way that it doesn’t impact the career prospects of General Line teachers.
Based on the presentation, the resource gap was identified by the Committee in the existing funding for paying the salaries of the SSA teachers and several options were examined to fund the gap.The Committee recommended that the School Education Department is in a position to pay one-month salary of the SSA teachers which may be approved by the Chief Secretary.The Finance Secretary said the State Government will take all measures required to fulfill the genuine demands of the SSA teachers while calling for a further discussion on the issue in Jammu after Darbar move.Among others, Commissioner Secretary, Higher Education, Sarita Chouhan, Director Budget, Imtiyaz Ahmad Wani, State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha, Tufail Mattoo and Director, School Education, G N Itoo, also attended the meeting.