Shimla: The move to restructure the Education Department has been set aside by the government due to apprehensions of an adverse political climate in the election year and lack of unanimity.

The exercise to restructure the largest government department comprising more than one lakh employees, into two or three departments has been in discussion for almost two years.

A three-member committee has been formed under the chairmanship of the Director of Education for charting out a model to restructure the existing setup.

Under the existing structure, different cadres in schools are controlled by varied directorates, which lead to confusion.

In order to open large number of professional colleges, universities and other institutions in private sector, an independent directorate is required for Higher Education.

Besides, the entire school education should be brought under one director-general of education, school in supervision of two directors, one for classes VI to XII and another for primary education.

But the three-member-committee suggested establishing separate departments for school education, higher education and research and training.

It also favoured bringing entire school education under one director with joint and additional directors for looking after elementary and senior secondary sections.

Above all, all district institutes for education and training, state council for education and training as well as other such institutes were suggested to bring under one section with a separate directorate for Higher Education.

The committee did not support one director-general of education as advised by the bureaucracy. Punjab has restructured its Education Department according to this pattern but the committee considered it a wrong model.

At the time of election, government cannot implement any proposal with conflicting interests among employees of several cadres. Therefore, the restructuring of Education Department has been set aside.