BROKEN CONTRACT

Hundreds of contractual lecturers working for years at various higher secondary schools and colleges were abruptly disengaged after August 2019. Now, in their late twenties and thirties, they are jobless and have nowhere to go, reports Khalid Bashir Gura

- Khalid Bashir Gura

Following reading down of Article 370 on Aug 5, 2019, Jammu and Kashmir 10+2 contractual lecturers hoped for regularisation of their jobs and end to their years of struggle. But when they returned to schools after months of lockdown, they were told they stand disengaged already.

Since then, the future of more than 1500 highly qualified candidates, most of whom have completed 10-15 years of ‘service’ in the education department, is uncertain.

“The academic arrangement process was started in 1998 in higher secondary schools to overcome the shortage of staff,” said Pankaj Sharma, a resident of Jammu and President of 10+2

Lecturer Association in Jammu. Over the years successive governments failed to devise a policy to regularize the candidates, most of whom have qualified NET, SET, and are PhDs, besides having decades of teaching experience. Sharma himself has served the department for more than a decade. “Most of us are feeling depressed,” Kashmir Divisional President of the Association, Ishfaq Majeed, 28, said.

A HOPE

The candidates were serving the department with the hope that they will be regularized someday. Now, they believe they are the victims of the “use and throw policy” of the successive governments.

As they are protesting for years with no solution in sight and demanding regularization, incumbent administration has shocked them by contending that due to the absorption of ReTs and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers they have no vacancies left and are not going to recruit lecturers through the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission for the upcoming five to six years.