Srinagar: The Directorate of School Education Kashmir (DSEK) Wednesday received bouquets and some brickbats after a video surfaced on social media wherein the Director of School Education Kashmir was seen playing cricket with school kids on a concrete path inside the school premises.
As the schools across Kashmir reopened for offline class work on Wednesday, Director of School Education Tasaduq Hussain Mir visited some of the government schools to interact with the students who returned to their schools after a gap of over two years.
During his visit to Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS) Nowpora in Srinagar, Mir joined the students who were playing cricket on a concrete path inside the school premises.
The move was seen as a good gesture as the government earlier asked the schools to create an atmosphere of celebration and jubilation to welcome the students in the schools.
However, it also exposed the chinks in the government schools that are facing a dearth of playfields.
“It is great to see the Director of School Education Kashmir joining kids on the day of school reopening but it also points at the lack of playgrounds in schools. The director was playing on a concrete path as the school has no playfield,” said a school teacher lamenting the lack of facilities in schools.
The teacher said the school was located in a congested alley of old Srinagar and had no playground for school children.
During the visit of the director to the school, the teachers also conveyed the issue to the director.
“The basic problem is that the school is congested and has no playfield,” the teachers said.
The national surveys carried out to assess the status of the government education sector has also painted a grim picture of government schools saying that most of the educational institutions lack the basic facility of a playground for kids besides other recreational facilities.
On the first day of reopening of schools, the teachers in both government and private schools were equally doing their bit to create an atmosphere of celebration to welcome the students.
Decoration and other arrangements put in place at government schools were no different from private schools.
The only difference between the government and the private schools was infrastructure – design, condition, and layout of school buildings.
The buildings of the majority of the government schools have either developed cracks, are outdated, or fail to give an impressive look.
In most government schools, the buildings have been constructed haphazardly and have no school ground for children to play.
Principal Secretary School Education Department (SED) Bishwajit Kumar Singh told Greater Kashmir that the wrong infrastructure design and layout of schools was one of the reasons why people do not send their children to study in government schools.