Srinagar, May 2: Responding to a news report appearing in a section of the press today regarding the transfer of a teacher in his home district Bandipora, the Minister for Education, Mr Naeem Akhtar has made the following statement:
While I am extremely disturbed by a fabricated news report appearing in local English daily today regarding transfer of a teacher in district Bandipora, it is at the same time a matter of great satisfaction for me that the newspaper had to resort to a completely concocted story to tarnish the image of the Education Department and my personal reputation as there are no wrongdoings in the Department, as was the case earlier, which could be played up against me.
It is very true that the said teacher, who is a resident of my ancestral village Garoora in district Bandipora, called on me some days back and given his academic background, I decided to post him in Higher Secondary School Nadihal, where there was a pressing need for posting a Mathematics teacher.
I make it clear that I have no relation with the said teacher and the decision to post him at HSS Nadihal was taken in the larger interest of the students and the institution. I am sure the Editor of the newspaper must be also well aware that I have no relation with the said teacher as otherwise he (Editor) would have also been interrelated with the teacher given the fact that the Editor is my family.
I want to at the same time put on record the gracious gesture of a longtime friend and another Editor of one the State’s leading English dailies who made his spouse to quit her job as a teacher, immediately before I assumed office as the Education Minister, so that our personal relations don’t influence anybody in the Education Department to seek the posting of choice for his wife.
It is extremely unfortunate that at a time when substantive efforts are being made to bring the State’s education system back on rails through various forward-looking initiatives, such motivated and dispiriting reports surface to undermine the very impact of the positive and meaningful transformation taking shape in the Department.
It is because of the path-breaking initiatives in the Education Department, set-out of late, that 45 students from the government schools, who studied at CM’s Super 50 Coaching Institutes, have qualified this year’s (Joint Entrance Examination) JEE 2016 for admission to IITs and NITs across the country. It will be perhaps for the first time in the State’s academic history that so many students from government educational institutions have qualified the prestigious examination in one go and fortunately they were taught by the same teachers who are being maligned through such news reports.
In another milestone, it is just a matter of one session that the Government Schools in the State secured 17 positions in matriculation examinations last year, through the sheer dint of the joint efforts of the Government and the sincere teachers, who have been jointly working hard to restore the prestige and glory of the government schools.
Although I have made my position amply clear, I request the Hon’ble Chief Minister to institute an impartial inquiry into the accusations made in the news report and if the said teacher is found to be in my close or distant relation, I am ready to take the next logical step.
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