Education is the only means of growth in this world of breakneck competition. At an individual level people succeed if they take education seriously, and follow the modern trends. At the level of a country, a nation, if the spending is more on education, the dividends are more in every other sector. Unfortunately because of this covid pandemic we have witnessed a huge disruption in the usual format of our education. The schools are shut, no classes can be held, and no exams arranged. As an alternative we resorted to the online medium. In J&K too the online education was take up as an alternative to the normal schooling, and to a large extent it involved the students; at least giving them a sense of being connected with the school, and with the teachers. Although there have been many experts who underlined the problems, and inadequacies in this format of education, but none would disagree that the online education was a great relief in this pandemic. Imagine schools remaining shut and no education happening at all. May be the world doesn’t understand it, but in Kashmir we have experienced the times when for months our schools remained closed and no education was possible.
This had a terrible negative impact on our children. The up shot is that the online education has minimised the damage to a great extent. Now the question is when should the schools open up. There are varied opinions on this. Some suggest that arrangements should be made to open the schools sooner than later. Contrary to this there is an opinion that school children should not be put to any danger, because the pandemic is no where near end. In this situation the administration should take a very informed, and nuanced view of the whole matter. One of the ways can be to go for a gradual, part time, and partial opening up of schools. As and when it is feasible to hold classes, and with whatever guidelines in place, the shift should not be sudden and total. The online education and the normal classroom education can be mixed up to create a hybrid education model, till the pandemic is over, and we are back to the normal times.