Education crisis in Shopian; Headless schools, vacant posts, and overburdened staff plague learning: J&K Students Association

• Seeks CM's intervention to end administrative chaos and save Shopian’s education system

SRINAGAR: The education system in the Shopian district is in a state of disarray due to severe administrative failures and staffing shortages. An RTI filed by the National Convenor of the Jammu and Kashmir Students Association, Nasir Khuehami, has revealed alarming deficiencies in school administration, with numerous institutions struggling due to unfilled leadership positions and an acute shortage of teaching staff.

National Convenor of Association Nasir Khuehami said that the RTI response reveals that 22 high schools in Shopian are functioning without headmasters, creating a leadership vacuum that hampers both academic and administrative efficiency. Also, two higher secondary schools—HSS Batfiojan and HSS Saipora—upgraded under the RMSA and SAMAGRA schemes remain without sanctioned headmaster posts, raising serious concerns about the execution of these government initiatives.

The crisis extends beyond just schools. Six headmasters are currently holding Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO) powers for multiple headless institutions, adding to the burden of existing staff. At the zonal level, Shopian has only one Zonal Education Officer (ZEO) instead of the required four, forcing two zones to be managed by overburdened school principals with additional DDO responsibilities.

He said that the district has a total of 15 higher secondary schools, out of which only four have full-time principals, while eight are managed by in-charge principals and three by look-after principals. In many cases, principals of other institutions have been given additional charges to oversee headless schools, but expecting one person to manage two critical roles is administratively impractical and detrimental to institutional effectiveness.

He emphasized that the lack of subject lecturers has severely impacted learning outcomes in Shopian, with 67 vacancies across key disciplines. There are 11 vacancies in Mathematics, seven in Urdu, six in Political Science, five in Physical Education, five in English, six in Economics, four in Arabic, and four in History. With such an acute shortage, students are being deprived of quality education, and schools are forced to merge classes or rely on temporary arrangements that are far from ideal.

Khuehami urged Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to take immediate action by filling vacant headmaster, principal, and ZEO positions to restore effective school administration. He called for the recruitment of lecturers across all subjects to ensure quality education and stressed the need to stop the practice of assigning multiple administrative roles to a single individual, as it leads to inefficiencies and compromises institutional management. He added that the Chief Minister must personally intervene to address these gaps in the education sector and sanction immediate appointments for headmasters and principals.

He said that the education system in Shopian is crumbling under administrative neglect. Schools cannot function properly without leadership, and students cannot excel without teachers. The government must take swift action before this crisis leads to irreversible damage to the district’s academic future.

Khuehami added that the widespread administrative failure in Shopian's education system calls for immediate intervention at the highest levels. If left unaddressed, thousands of students could suffer long-term academic setbacks, further widening the educational divide in the region.