Central scheme fails to fill vacant posts of Urdu teacher

Vikas Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 7

As a majority of the government primary schools in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are facing shortage of language teachers, especially Urdu, even the Centrally sponsored scheme has failed to serve the purpose to fill the vacant posts of Urdu teacher.

‘Part-time arrangement’

Despite various reminders to the higher authorities to fill the language teacher posts in the schools, nothing much has been done in this regard by the successive governments. There is no other option than to hire Urdu teachers on the part-time/academic arrangement basis. — An official

As per official data, there are around 14,716 government primary schools in J&K of which more than 7,000 are in Jammu province. Sources said more than half of the government primary schools in Jammu division are not having specialised Urdu teachers to teach students. The dearth of Urdu teachers is more in Jammu, Samba, Kathua and Udhampur districts of Jammu region.

They added that the Centrally-sponsored scheme-financial assistance for appointment of language teachers in various government and aided schools of the country launched by the Centre in October 2019 to provide financial assistance as honorarium for the appointment of Urdu teachers in government and aided schools had also failed to serve the purpose.

“Despite various reminders to the higher authorities to fulfil the language teacher posts in the schools, nothing much has been done in this regard by the successive governments. There is no other option than to hire Urdu teachers on the part-time/academic arrangement basis to teach the students”, an official said.

“Under its three-language formula to encourage usage of Hindi and Urdu among sSchool-going children, the Centre had introduced the scheme which aimed at fulfilling the requirement of language teachers in government and aided schools to encourage propagation of Hindi and Urdu languages in the country. As far as J&K is concerned, the scheme is of little help”, he stated.