Results of the recent civil service examinations in which six boys from the state qualified sufficiently suggest given the opportunity Kashmir youth can make it to the top. Most of the boys who qualified had received guidance for appearing in these examinations from some top coaching centers in New Delhi. It is an admitted fact that the I.Q. of Kashmiri students as compared to students from many other parts of India is higher but it has been all that they need proper education and little honing. The state has been suffering on two counts. One, lack of perseverance and two proper education policies. Truth is that the state had become conscious in early eighties of pushing in more youth in All India Services and had evolved a well thought-out policy for encouraging youth for participating in these examinations but the policy failed at implementation level for commitment of the state bureaucracy.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir was perhaps the first state in the sub-continent where education was made compulsory even during the autocratic rule and after 1947 it was also the first state to introduce free education from primary to post-graduate level.   There can be no denying the then political leaders looked at education sector beyond chauvinism and party politics. The best possible educational experts from outside the state were recruited to draft state’s educational policy and implement the same. The education sector received in the initial post-feudal years received a big boost and there   was considerable increase in the literacy rate of the state. Seen in retrospect, the education sector in the state suffered a setback because of lack of vision of state bureaucracy and the state failed to keep pace in education sector with other neighboring states. It was made to suffer the malaise of regionalism.   Unfortunately parochialism took roots having an unhealthy effect on the overall education system of our state. The number of schools in the state during the past forty years has multiplied at a geometrical progression but at same time the standards of education have also declined at the same rate. It has not only been for the State not having a focused educational policy but for the faulty recruitment policy, mostly guided by petty constituency politics,that have affected the standards of education more particularly in the rural areas where there are no public schools. It also cannot be denied that the number of colleges in the state has from single digit gone up to three digits and there is hardly an area that now does not have a degree college   but what is alarming is inadequacy of teachers and lack of infrastructure.   Although most of colleges are expected to teach sciences but so far no arrangements for teaching have been made in many of the colleges to teach these subjects. Seen in right perspective most of our educational colleges have turned into machines producing unemployed youth as our education policy continues to be most hackneyed. There is need for overhauling the education system in the state and tuning to the global requirements. There is need for introducing courses in these colleges that will have global market. There should also be greater emphasis on introducing highly advanced scientific and technological courses. In fact there is no academy of science or an institute of advanced research in sciences in the state. Neither the state nor the central government has taken any initiative during the past few years to set up any institute for research in sciences. More than five decades the Central Government had established a Regional Research Laboratory in the state but seen in right perspective, this institute also has failed to grow beyond a certain level.
While emphasizing the need for revamping education system in the state there is also need of making concerted efforts for encouraging more and more youth to partake in the central service examinations. 

Lastupdate on : Mon, 7 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 7 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 8 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST