Students bear brunt of unending shutdowns

Srinagar: Amid the raging militancy and growing public discontent, Kashmir valley’s students and educational institutions seem to be the biggest losers as shutdowns and curfews curtail the number of working days in an academic year. Educational institutions are often closed either because of the separatists’ strike calls or official curfews and other “pre-emptive” and “precautionary” measures by the authorities against protests by students. Examinations are deferred too.

Both teachers and students admit that the frequent and prolonged closure of educational institutions is causing “irreversible loss”.

Farkhanda Dar, an arts student at a Srinagar women’s college said that she should have been pursuing her masters by now “but I’m still in college and if nothing untoward comes in between I would be appearing in my final year examination in June”.

Following the killing of 13 militants and four civilians in southern Shopian and Anantnag district on April 1, the Valley was rocked by a series of protests and stone-pelting incidents amid days of official curfews and shutdowns called by an alliance of key separatist leaders. During this fresh spell of mayhem, schools, colleges and universities remained shut too. The unsolicited break was only extended after students at some of these institutions took to the streets and clashed with security forces the very day class work had to resume.   On April 9, educational institutions barring a couple of colleges which had seen protests and violence earlier were reopened. Then came the killing of four civilians in security forces firing on mobs near an encounter site at Khudwani in Kulgam district and with that the educational institutions were closed and board and university examinations postponed once again.

A recently conducted economic survey said that main contributories to the lessening of attainment of quantity of education include destruction of infrastructure, fear of sending children to schools, incorporation of youth into armed groups, negative economic shocks to households and forced displacement.

“All this has to be reversed,” said state’s education minister Syed Altaf Bukhari. But there seem to be no easy answers on how to go about it.  CPI(M)’s state secretary and four-time MLA Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami believes that it is for the political leadership of the state to come up with a solution. “Education is one of the institutions that make up the social structure of any society. The leadership while cutting across political ideologies must come together, arrive at a consensus where educational institutions are kept away from unrest. It must ensure the precious time of students is not wasted due to the prevailing situation,” he said. Mr Tarigami pointed out that many “precious” academic days have already been lost in the current academic session which in long run will result in Kashmiri students remaining behind in competitive exams.

“We already have a short academic session in Kashmir which is further shrunk by public holidays, strike calls and curfews. If you combine the number of shutdown calls, curfews, public holidays, winter and summer vacations, educational institutions in Kashmir remain open for less than 150 days,” he said.

The concerned authorities don’t disagree but say they can do little to overcome the predicament.  

The current situation is a throwback to the situation in the early 1990s when educational institutions remained closed most of the times. It resulted into Kashmiri students lagging far behind in competitive exams at national level during that period.As per official statistics, the literacy rate in the State which was 55 per cent in 2001 has risen by more than 10 percent in the last seventeen years but it is still much less than the national average of 74.04 per cent. “Education is the single most potent tool of development around the globe. Can’t all of us think to find and devise some mechanism so that education doesn’t suffer due to the ongoing unrest?” asked Mr Tarigami, seeking urgent steps.