Even after clubbing of the government schools with zero student population, scores of such schools still exist in Valley while there are hundreds of schools where teachers outnumber students.Government High School Hajipora in South Kashmir’s Shopian district with zero student population has seven teachers. “Sometimes these teachers visit the school and leave at will. We fail to understand why so many teachers have been posted here when no student is studying here. There are so many schools that are understaffed and these teachers need to be posted in such schools,” locals of Hajipora Shopian told CNS.When former Education Minister Nayeem Akhtar had assumed the charge in 2015 he had maintained that in summer capital Srinagar, 19 government schools had no student while other districts in Kashmir too had zero enrollments. There were 12 such schools in Budgam, 24 in Pulwama, 15 in Kargil and 18 in Kupwara.
On the directions of Nayeem Akhtar, the Directorate of School Education had clubbed these schools falling in the same districts. However, the problem still persists.The Education Department that has always been in the news for giving favoured postings to some teachers has posted three more teachers taking total number to five at Government Primary School Gagran Shopian where a single student is enrolled. “For a single student, there are five teachers here. Earlier there were only two teachers and recently three more teachers were posted here,” a respectable citizen from Gagran Shopian Abdul Aziz told CNS.He added that schools with less or zero student population have been sanctioned by successive governments to generate employment in their constituencies without taking into consideration that the schools need students as well. “These are places where they (teachers) gossip. Some schools have five teachers against three students, or 11 teachers for five students-a situation prevalent in almost every district of Kashmir Valley,” he said. (CNS)