NEW DELHI: The Army, undergoing a major overhaul with the planned restructuring exercise, has decided to retain a small number of personnel of the Army Education Corps (AEC). After the recommendation to close AEC by the 2016 Shekatkar Committee, the ongoing initiative of restructuring Army also concluded to wind up the Corps.
“There was a plan to readjust the AEC completely with the other branches, departments and services of the Army but now we plan to retain around 15% of the current strength and readjust the remaining officers and men,” said a senior Army officer.
At present there are 4,700 Officers and around 5,000 Junior Commissioned Officers and other ranks in the Corps. The number of women officers is also high in this corps which functions as part of Military Training Directorate under Directorate General of Military Training.
The women officers will be given a chance to join the new six streams opened for them recently. Army has allowed its women officers now to join streams of Language, Information Technology, Cyber, Air Traffic Control, Administration and Image Interpretation.
Earlier the education standards of the soldiers used to be quite low and AEC used to work on improving their educational qualifications. With time candidates with higher qualifications are joining the force.
Also, the headquarters have begun training soldiers at their level thus the AEC manpower remains under utilised told the officer. Readjustment of manpower is being done in a planned manner.
AEC is entrusted with the responsibility of enhancing the educational standard of the troops and its cadre is posted at subareas (garrisons), headquarters, training centres, units, establishments, sainik schools,
military schools, colleges and selection centres.
Additional responsibilites
Other than the responsibility of enhancing the educational standard of the troops and its cadre, the Corps also prepares JCOs and ORs for promotion and even for Service Selection Boards (SSB).