Since you took over the reins of the so far neglected Education department, you have tried your level best to bring the department back on track. Your efforts have been duly acknowledged and appreciated in the ongoing session of Legislative Assembly by the members, across the party lines. But isn’t it a fact that your main emphasis has been on the School Education, where a considerable improvement has been made, so far as academic excellence and infrastructural development is concerned.
The regular classes are conducted only in the University and the schools while as the class work is absolutely missing in your Higher Secondary schools and the colleges. We hope you make these high salaried professors accountable. Colleges must be inspected and that would definitely improve the result. We as parents and civil society join your colleagues of Legislative Assembly and place it on record that there was hardly a day when you didn’t visit an area or a school just to monitor the functioning of the schools and while doing so you kept your DSEK and the Secretary School Education on toes. The results are obvious. The standard of education in school sector has started improving. But Sir, colleges too await your attention. Our young students are being cane-charged and harassed not because of their follies but because of the casual approach of their teachers and the heads of the institutions. Sir you and me know that each college teacher earns lacks of rupees as salary in a year but how many lectures do these professors deliver in a year.
The Higher Education sector in the valley is a story of woes and mental agony for the students and their parents. The batch of agitating students was admitted in the colleges somewhere in April-May 2016. Due to the summer vacations and Ramazan, the fasting month, not much class work was done. The normal class work would have started soon after the Eid ul Fitr, but unfortunately soon after the death of Burhan Wani an unending spell of shutdowns, processions and crackdowns started which changed the whole scenario in the valley and the education sector was the worst hit. In spite of having almost negligible classes, the University decided to hold the 1st: semester examinations in Feb 2017. The University justified its decision in view of the fact that some stray lessons were uploaded on the website, which were not only incomplete but insufficient as well. The hapless students went from pillar to post to redress their grievances, main one being as to how can the exams be conducted when almost zero classes were conducted in the colleges. The worst part of the story is that in some subjects the prescribed text books were either not available or not printed at all till the exam was conducted. Even if the students wanted to prepare the examination of their own but due to the absence of text books how could they do that? Somehow the first semester examination was completed in February 2017. There was no end to their woes in 2017 as well. The class work of much delayed 2nd: semester was supposed to start in March 2017. But due to the delay in 1st semester and due to the unrest in the valley it did not start and the story of shutdowns and curfews was again too long which cost dear to the students of the valley.
The 2nd semester examination was scheduled by the University somewhere in July-August 2017, having no regard to the fact that no classes were conducted in the colleges, despite the fact that a record all time high fee was charged from the students. The third semester classes were supposed to be started in August-September 2017, soon after the examination of 2nd semester terminated which was not done. Instead numerous un-productive meetings were conducted by the Principals, in the name of NAAC, at least for the consumption of the students, just to justify the absence of teachers from the classes which delayed regular class work. This was done due to the dearth of teaching staff in the colleges which was till then comprising mainly on contractual lecturers. If you peruse the records it will be clear that almost up to August–Sept, 2017 no contractual lecturers were engaged and when they were engaged the academic year was almost over, which affected the class work of both 2nd and 3rd semesters adversely.
The irony is that when the conditions improved the classes were missing in the colleges. Students would go regularly to the college but would return without attending the classes. I still remember one day when my son told me that ABUJI today’s Rs.100, which he had paid as fare, was also wasted because as a routine there were no classes in the college. In a particular college some classes were taken in English Literature only and rest of the subjects which include Economics, Urdu, Communicative English, EVS, Sociology etc. etc went classless throughout the year, due to the non availability of the teaching faculty. And whenever the faculty was available, they missed the classes without any cogent reason. The height of the irresponsibility of the college administration can be judged from the fact that the Computer subject in 3rd semester was offered to the students but without the availability of the teacher. The students, in mid session were brazenly told by the college administration to prepare the computer subject of their own with out any help from the college. Without having been properly and adequately taught in the colleges, the third semester students are now due for examination.
Sir, may I inform you that their batch mates who went outside the valley for studies have already completed 4th semesters and are presently pursuing their 5th semester. The students in your colleges have already wasted one precious year partly because of our political uncertainty and partly because of the casual and in human attitude of the authorities of the higher learning institutions of the State. Now Sir, can you imagine that the result of the 2nd semester, the exam of which was held in June-July 2017 is yet to be declared. The result of 1st semester, the exam of which was held in Feb. 2017 was declared on January 19, 2018, after a gap of exactly one year. The result so declared even after a delay of one year is messy, incorrect and tabulated half-heartedly. Ironically poor students are being blamed for something that is none of their fault.
The good work you have done at the school front is to be done at the college level too. Let stern action be taken against those who play with the career of thousands of our innocent youth.
(The author is a teacher by profession)