The decision is not only bizarre; it also does not go well with the present circumstances where scores of youth are running from pillar to post in search of employment. We have several cases where those with PhDs are teaching kids at primary schools in Kashmir because of a lack of employment avenues in higher education. The authorities have, no doubt, admitted that there is a shortage of faculty in the Universities, but how is increasing the retirement age going to help in this case? The step might have been taken for the betterment of these higher seats of learning, but it is not going to help in any way, rather, it is going to aggravate the problem further.
Instead, the authorities should have kept 62 as 62, allowing the University faculties to retire at the prescribed age and at the same time kick-starting the process of hiring new people to fulfil the gaps and shortage. The process, if it was left untouched and unaltered, would have ensured that those who spend decades in service would retire and those young with the necessary qualifications would see themselves finding a way into the system, replacing the old. This is how the system works everywhere, in every department, but here whatever is being done is in total contrast.
The increase in the retirement age is going to increase the deadwood in the Universities. We will have fertile brains of youngsters with all the necessary qualifications, dying silently, teaching at schools while they could have easily made their way to teach the students at the Universities. By this, the authorities are doing a great disservice to society because they are ensuring that young, creative minds remain out and away from where they are most needed, but is there anyone to listen to that?
The move is a cruel joke with the youth of J&K as the administration has ignored the intensity and cruelty of the unemployment that the country, including J&K, is facing. What the administration has done—whose formal orders are yet to come—might be perfectly okay and normal in other countries, but in India, particularly talking of J&K, it is akin to rubbing salt in the wounds and could prove to be another nail in the coffin where the youth will lose all the hopes associated with the system which claims to appreciate the capabilities and skill. Is anybody even bothered about that?
