Amid Distance Education Row…
BY: ABU FIDA
For the last couple of months, debates and discussions have reached its all-time peak about whether distance education here in Jammu and Kashmir be taken at par with the corresponding regular degrees. Speculations are high about the fate of distance degree holders after some recent developments caused uncertainty with regard to distance education. Some say that distance education was unjustifiably nullified here in this part of the world upto 17th of November 2017, a distinction the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir had got over the rest of states of the country.
Realizing the obvious alienation from rest of the country where distance education was given due importance, a department specific mechanism was formulated by the government on 17th November 2017 granting the conditional validity to distance mode degrees. The plan of action for the said mechanism was approved in a meeting held on 12-10-2017 chaired by the then education minister and attended by many high-profile dignitaries including the administrative secretaries of many departments such as Higher Education, GAD, School Education and Law, Justice & Parliamentary Affairs, besides the Dean Academic Affairs of both the Universities of Jammu and Kashmir. It was only then that a department specific mechanism with officials nomenclature as 940-edu of 2017 was approved by the department on 17/11/2017.
All the departmental promotion orders, particularly of distance degree holders post 17/11/2017 were elevated strictly in light of 940-edu of 2017. In fact, a categoric certificate was sought from the DDO to certify that the degree has been obtained in accordance with this laid down mechanism.
However, to everyone’s surprise, in an order- 2189-JK(edu) of 2022, dated 16-12-2022, the department questioned all those degrees obtained through distance mode and instantly reverted a good number of lecturers back to their substantive posts by withdrawing their placement order. This order to an entire extent was in contrast to the high-profile order 940-edu of 2017.
It is not less than a trauma that a teacher gets promoted as lecturer by all legal means, joins his new place of posting, and works as lecturer there for almost an academic session. Then all of a sudden, he/she is offered a mere ‘sorry’ by the same authorities who until recently were justifying his elevation. The stigma of being a short span lecturer will haunt them for the whole life ahead. Ah! Just feel the pain. It is all likely that they will end up in depression.
To a layman, if they are not eligible today, they, therefore, would have not been eligible before. How come they were then elevated? Accountability is far good, but selective accountability is equally painful.
There is a section of teachers who have always been proponents of the issue under question for obvious reasons. However, whosoever ignited the issue, think for a while, it is a teacher irrespective of the nature of post he/she holds, who is always at the receiving end. The proponents of the issue under question might have managed to revert back a good number of lecturers, how many teachers otherwise eligible got promoted after that said order? Of course, none! A question everyone needs to find the answer.
To a commoner, the present regime is desperate to prove that their predecessors were wrong. Tomorrow they will be proved wrong. In this battle of proving each other wrong however, it is the teacher who ultimately bears the wrath. This will surely have its adverse impact on the overall performance of the department. Likings of an individual shall never surpass the general interest. Government orders are subject to the modification, but the modifications should be of ‘henceforth’ nature, and in no way ‘since them’.
