The government-run schools in far off areas of Kashmir are grappling with shortage of staff while the majority of the educational institutions have been left headless, taking a toll on the overall functioning of these schools.
Also, the government has failed to provide adequate accommodation to the students in rural schools forcing them to attend classes under open sky. At times the students of more than one class are crammed in one room by teachers leaving no scope for students to grasp what they are taught.
The schools are deprived of proper classrooms and adequate staff at a time when the government is making tall claims of imparting quality education and having equipped schools with other facilities like CAL centres or ICT laboratories.
Gurez education zone in Bandipora district is a case in point. The zone has around seven higher secondary schools out of which the post of principal in five higher secondary schools is vacant.
Not only this, out of 12 high schools, five are without a headmaster. “This zone has been completely neglected by the government due to which schools are headless and no basic facilities are provided to these schools as well,” said a school teacher wishing not to be named.
“The successive regimes did not order promotions for the last many years due to which the vacancies piled up and schools are still headless,” he said.
Notably, during the last two years, the educational institutions were closed for routine schooling giving enough breathing time for the department to streamline the posting of school heads besides filling other vacancies. “Even the rationalisation of staff could have been done during the pandemic when education was imparted through digital mode,” the teacher said.
Besides vacant posts of school heads, the schools in Gurez are teacher-deficient as around 33 posts of lecturers are vacant in higher secondary schools across the Gurez education zone. “The posts of teachers and masters are lying vacant in schools as well which has created a lot of difficulties for us to run the academic affairs in schools,” another teacher said.
An official said the teachers who were recruited in the School Education Department (SED) as teachers on the basis of the reserved category certificate have managed their transfers to Bandipora, Ganderbal or Srinagar district by using their political influence during the past years.
“At the time of recruitment they used the category certificate of Gurez and later managed their transfer to other areas instead of serving in their own areas,” the official said.
Over the years, the SED is beating the drum of rejuvenating the education sector in J&K but contrary to it, the educational institutions in far off areas of Kashmir have remained the victims of official neglect.
In contemporary times, the SED claims to make the educational institutions more student friendly by giving technological interventions by setting up smart class rooms and launching Computer Aided Learning (CAL) centres. However, the tall claims fall flat in rural areas where the students sans the basic infrastructural facilities in their schools.
In most of the rural schools, the government has failed to provide basic infrastructure and the students are crammed in congested, shabby and unsafe rooms due to the non availability of adequate accommodation.
The case of Upper Primary School (UPS) Gujjarnar in Mawar zone of Kupwara district is another example worth citing. The school has a student population of around 120 students in nine classes from Kindergarten to class 8th who are crammed in five dingy rooms.
The school has an acute shortage of classrooms for the students. “We have to accommodate 120 students of nine classes in five rooms. We have been doing this for the last many years and the department is least bothered about it,” a teacher said.
“The classrooms remain congested due to which it becomes difficult for the teacher to take his class when students of more than one class are present in one room,” he said.
On top of it, the department has posted six teachers in the school for nine classes leaving it teacher-deficient while the teachers posted in schools located in easily accessible areas outnumber the students.
“The schools which are located near roadside or near town are overstaffed despite having low enrollment of students as compared to the institutions in far off areas. But the department has not streamlined the posting of teachers on need basis and the student becomes the casualty,” the teacher said.
Attending classes in a “sophisticated” way inside classrooms has remained a distant dream for the students enrolled in schools of far off areas.
The education in rural schools is in dismal state despite having enormous response from the populace in terms of enrollment of the students in the government schools.
“The department is aware that there are no private schools in far off areas and students mostly prefer government schools for admission. Ironically, these schools are the worst victim of official neglect,” an official said.
Education zone Chrari Shareef is another victim of official apathy in which schools are headless for years together.
“In district Budgam around 10 posts of ZEOs are lying vacant. In the education zone Chrari Sharief around seven high schools are without Headmasters from the last two years,” an official said, while lamenting the official apathy. Over a dozen government middle schools have been headless for almost four years as well, he said.
The government schools in the far off areas continue to remain out of focus of the authorities even as the schools get enormous response from students as compared to that of in urban areas.
The ground situation of the schools depicts the grim picture and the department must address these grave issues on top priority to safeguard the student interest.
Instead of focusing on few city schools and those located in towns, the department must reach out to far off schools with immediate interventions in order to have positive changes in these schools.
Recently, the SED constituted several teams for holding inspections of the government schools to monitor teaching-learning methodologies besides assessing the infrastructure available for the children in the institutions.
The inspection of school building, sports infrastructure, ICT Labs, Furniture, Washroom, Drinking Water, Electricity and Library by the inspection teams will cover 30 percent of the inspection and schools will be rated accordingly.
While the initiative is under process, the teams should reflect the reality of the government schools, particularly of far off areas, in their inspection reports or recommendations submitted to the government.
If not smart classes, the government must provide basic facilities of classrooms to students of rural areas enrolled in government schools.
It would be next to impossible to achieve the goal of providing quality education to students if schools are left understaffed, both in terms of teacher strength or heads of institutions. The authorities must make serious policy interventions to ensure all necessary facilities are made available to students in far off areas to give them a level playing field to excel and progress. Infrastructural and staff deficiencies must be plugged as a matter of priority if universalisation of education is the goal to be achieved in near future.