In this unusually hot summer in Kashmir, making children attend highly ill-equipped schools is tantamount to risking their wellbeing. Children are vulnerable to ill-effects of extreme heat just because they are less likely to withstand hyperthermia and dehydration.  A decision about not to extend summer holidays must not have come in a top-down fashion with the civil secretariat and the Directorate of School Education, Kashmir (DSEK) playing the judges. A more credible process will be an inclusive one – where decisions are taken by engaging health experts, parents’ associations, teachers associations, and, most importantly, children themselves. The irony is that in recent years Kashmiri society has developed a strange kind of collective apathy towards the wellbeing of our children. When we aim to make our roads less crowded for the movement of politicians and bureaucrats in Srinagar, we fix irrational school timings which are detrimental for children’s health. And there is hardly a collective protest. Kashmir’s schools are one of the most ill-equipped in the world. They are mostly devoid of toilets and safe drinking water. Buildings that are rented are risky and without proper ventilation. Government buildings pay little attention to safety and wellbeing. In an unusually hot and humid summer, our schools are not in a position to facilitate education. Not only the public schools, even most of the private schools, that charge hefty fees from parents, have no cooling and heating equipment. Worse, a number of private schools registered by DSEK, including those aligned with orphanages; openly flout even the government schedule for vacations and holidays. Schooling and child rights experts are of the opinion that if an independent evaluation of school timings, infrastructure and their adverse impact on children’s wellbeing were to be done in Kashmir, the result would be alarming. It is time civil society of Kashmir gets a little more proactive in taking social and legal recourses to ensure that the state discretion is subjected to moral and judicial scrutiny to ensure children’s wellbeing.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 3 Aug 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 3 Aug 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 4 Aug 2012 00:00:00 IST