Political uncertainty, frequent strikes marring education system in Kashmir

Srinagar, April 03 (KNB): Education is of paramount importance to every society and without it a society or nation is nothing but an uncivilized mass without any vision or direction. But unfortunately enough the education system in Kashmir due to repeated uncertainties has bore worst brunt in past three decades particularly. In current times, the Valley of Kashmir’s already fragile education system has been hit hard by the ongoing unrest. Killings, Violent Protests coupled with frequent strikes and repeated restriction and closing advisory on state level in the past one month have ruined the academic calendar of students, even before this current wave of unrest, the schools had opened after a long winter break of about two-and-a-half months.
Parents, Students and academicians are calling for an immediate solution to the conflict like situation, so that the education of the students is not compromised. Considering the worrying situation, several sane voices are calling for innovative suggestions with prominent among them being making the education of students’ conflict neutral and keeping it away from the strikes and government advisories and other ideas are also being floated so as to compensate the precious loss of time.
The prevailing turmoil and strikes in Kashmir Valley have obvious implications on the implementation of technical education programmes. The impact of strikes has been deep and profound on the educational atmosphere in the Valley.”
Academic expert G N Var (President Private Schools Association), while talking to the Kashmir News Bureau stated – “First and foremost education should be kept politics and conflict neutral. This strict administrative fiefdom bereft of any logic and rationale should end. The State government undertook all measures to keep situation normal during recent tourism TAAI Meet but no seriousness displayed when it comes to education. During world war at one place even the two enemy armies agreed to keep schools open while as here we are following overall headless policies.”



Experienced voices believe that absence of competitive academic culture will hurt the proficiency of Kashmiri youngsters in top level competitive exams.
Asif Kanth, a tutor by proffestion, while talking to Kashmir News Bureau states -“We are witnessing lot of bloodshed and pain in Kashmir as has been the case since past thirty years , but on the other hand we also need to bear in mind without education a society is nothing , we need to find out some mechanism by which educational institutions do not lose whole academic year as this means great tragedy for us on intellectual levels .All the sane voices of the society need to ponder upon the fact that if educational institutes do not function normally our education picture is getting hurt . We hope society will evolve a brighter strategy in this regard otherwise our performance in competitive exams will suffer.”
Many opine that nothing can compensate the education achieved from school environment and keeping them always open should be priority.
Mujeeb Mir, a youth activist states- “Schools are backbone of every society as they teach and train future generations. Strikes, shutdowns and restrictions don’t only affect the business sector; they affect the adversely educational sector too. Most institutes of the valley remain closed for days, sometimes even months, altogether. The time has come when we think on innovative terms to keep our schools, colleges and universities open on most of the instances otherwise in this day and age of cut throat competition we are doomed as a society.”
The pulse on the ground is that time has come to keep education away from politics , conflict and also allow more autonomy to management of schools in decision making, so that areas having less disturbance can have schools functioning. (KNB)