The pending civil works in the school education department were halted due to shut down following the abrogation of Article-370 and outbreak of COVID-19, Jammu and Kashmir government has informed the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).
The representatives of Jammu and Kashmir however, informed the MHRD that the efforts were underway by way of execution of civil works. “It is expected that UT shall be completing the pending works by December 2020,” the government said.
The official documents available with a local news agency, Kashmir News Observer (KNO) reads, “All the pending works could not be completed within the stipulated time period because of clampdown since August 2019 in the UT of JK due to abrogation of Article 370 coupled with nationwide lockdown due to outbreak of COVID-19.”
Earlier, the J-K authorities have said that the state will complete all the pending civil works in 2018-19.
The MHRD in the previous academic year has directed the JK government to rationalize teacher deployment so that there is no single teacher school and the schools have comfortably Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR)
The MHRD said that the J-K authorities have ensured that further efforts are being made so that no school is functioning with a single teacher. The state also committed for a comfortable PTR both at primary and upper primary level. Subject-wise PTR is also ensured.
In a reply to the queries of MHRD, the government said, “The rationalization of teachers has been done to a great extent but there are still certain schools with single teachers. The process is underway to cover these schools also by way of rationalization which is expected to be completed by December, 2020.”—(KNO)
