Government's move of handling over positions of Chief Education Officers to KAS cadre apparently looks quite substantive and catches the attention of one and all , at least from the school education department .Administration and professionalism are mutually inclusive and two sides of the same coin where the former sounds unattractive in absence of the latter. The position of chief education officer is purely an administrative job which demands true blending of professional, academic and administrative skills to be executed in the manner in which it must be operational. Without a fine professional touch and a brush up of administrative expertise, it sounds inefficient, ineffective , unappealing and off-putting. Moreover, professional excellence enables an officer to be decisive and enables him to take right decisions at the right time in the best interest of the department or the organisation. The administration devoid of professional skills and excellence lacks such capacities of decision making and makes an administrator to rely too much and too often on others for their decisions resulting in wasting of precious time. Infact , missing the timing and accuracy of making such decisions renderes them ineffective , irrelevant and meaningless.

However , looking from the broader perspective there is only one such reason which makes the move of handling over CEO positions to KAS Cadre to look like irrelevant or out of the order and that is the career growth and stagnation of officials working in the school education department .It is strongly felt that the officials of the department are not promoted as quickly to the next levels be it to the ranks of Chief Education Officers which results in years of stagnation and lack of interest among the officials to excel in their work. Moreover, generally an academician who has gone through the system is believed to be at a much better position to deal with the position of a Chief Education Officer. This will give a fine balance to it not only in terms of promotions and proficiency but also offers a blend of administration and academic excellence. Infect on this basis and argument the move can be opposed straightaway simply by saying that the employees working in the department cannot offer such positions in a plate to the officials of different departments. But then this should be understandable that all the people in the department can not be promoted to the ranks of CEOs not even those who become illegible or qualify for such ranks .It is actually only a handful of officials who finally reach to or attain the position of a CEO. Therefore , opposing this move merely on this argument may not be genuinely sufficient. And then merely for the career growth of certain officials the whole department can't be deprived of availing best professional services.
Mostly a principal gets promoted to the rank of CEO at a time when he or she has not more than 2 years of service left in the department .Even some officials are promoted as CEOs when they have only six months of their services left. As such this is the time when the officer naturally and more often thinks about the retirement and therefore by this or that way it definitely has an impact on his performance and in a way the officer can not think about long-term policies or goals. Having young officers from the same department would be an ideal solution but given the route and routine of hierarchy in the department it is quite impossible unless such a provision made and adapted by the government. In July 2020 then Principal Secretary to School Education Department ( SED ) Asgar Hussain Samoon strongly advocated for introducing Education Administrative Service ( EAS ) as envisaged in NEP-2020 for creation of a separate and dedicated service for education and such a proposal was moved on which the department was actively working. Latter a committee was constituted to recommend the specifics of the proposed EAS for Jammu and Kashmir. The aim was to create a dedicated academic and administrative expertise within the department which can also resolve the stagnation issues. The proposal was all set to be moved to the administrative council for its approval. Unfortunately due to the lack of political will the proposal was shelved and left in abeyance then and there. The bottom line is that the government must show the will power to bring such a provision of introducing Education Administrative Service ( EAS ) in the department where the young and talented professionals will get motivated to come forward and serve the department in their best professional capacity. This will not only result in creating a positive competition among the teachers but will also keep them aligned with the modern day challenges of the knowledge world. This will also put an end to any such controversy of bringing in the administrators likes of the KAS cadre from across the departments .However , it is very important to mention that If the government has no such a wish or whim of creating any services in the department , then handing over it to KAS cadre will be a best move which must be worked out without any further delay. However, in both the cases it will be mandatory to fill the positions of ZEOs and Principals too on the pattern of similar services in order to keep a proper alignment in the administration.

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