Education is contemplated as a behaviour shaping means from the advent of the universe, and undoubtedly it invests its positive gears in a man and society. Yet, education and Kashmir, from the period of the beginning, had stayed in a warm shell, outright, hand in hand.
Although education had remained a prospect towards a Kashmiri from time to time, a Kashmiri never looked out for the negative flank due to its full swing proficiency and consistent mindset. That is why the contributions from Kashmir to the education sector or due to education prevailed in many shapes and forms.
Education (receiving and providing) is a reason to survive and a mudbank for many. But unfortunately, the education sector in Kashmir read up an excruciating posture from the end of 1989, a crucial era that turned on the political uncertainties and suspense in the valley.
The coin earned a flip, and a different picture of Kashmir was stocked in the market (world). After that, the new era never minds reminding the horrible episodes of lighting up the educational institutions into flames. This flip rewrote the outlook of the education sector also.
Educationists, pro believers and spreaders, and the government undoubtedly made an effort to revolutionise the education sector and plug the productive settings into it. The decades flowed in installing the new attitude to the education sector.
Suddenly, in a blinking action, the political tensions flared again from 2016. In August 2019, Kashmir’s special status (articles 370 and 35A) was dumped like a junk of trash, which added fuel to the political (uncertain) flames. Yet another hefty outlook of the education sector is on the screen.
Nature exists and loves symmetry, which is a universal fact, and this fact also achieves its meaning in the margins of operations. The world watched the catastrophic waves of Covid-19, a virus (from December 2019) that is a big adversary to the economies health sector, including the education sector and is still rolling its roughness on the market (world).
“Over 4000 schools in the region are either without, or with a non-functioning girls’ toilet…” #KakshaCrisis
Girls in conflict zones have their own battles. YKA user Ali Qalandar elaborates:https://t.co/Wrbnwl9Aps— Youth Ki Awaaz (@YouthKiAwaaz) January 12, 2022
This time, the education sector of the whole world stood knee bent including ours. The education sector of the valley was so far (already) in the stroke, so it came to be hot-headed for the educationists, people and government to set it on the zenith once again.
Currently, no one asserts an attempt to compensate for the failure of the education sector so far. No, not even the government. The online education policy is in a race post-August 2019, but not a single intellectual academician is complacent. Instead of switching the education to the strength, the government aims to survive the contemporary education on the online strategy nutriment.
The reactions of Covid-19 brought and made the education sector mindful of the online education policy; that program was never even sampled by the education sector of an underdeveloped state like Kashmir. This policy created a turtle race in the field of education.
Even though we live in the age of technology, this doesn’t mean that technology is inclusive and feasible for everyone because online education is not productive for everyone in Kashmir as many students can hardly afford it.
On the other hand, a smartphone is a fundamental prerequisite for it. Having ten thousand or twenty thousand smartphones is always chimaera and mirage for a poor student. In other words, we can say that the online mode of education is exclusively beneficial for those students to well off families. Because of these aspects of adversities, poor people are deprived of education at a very little age.
Internet blockade is already a crucial concern in Kashmir, a conflict-ridden zone. Continuous internet blockade is continually hampering the study process of students very severely. On the other hand, online education needs 24 hours of internet access to continue their studies smoothly and effectively.
Even at the outset of the pandemic, when the offline mode was switched to online mode in Kashmir, the students were excluded from 4G internet from time to time, which forged a lot of chaos in the research work of scholars and hampered their academic literary taste as well.
Online education has degraded the quality of teaching in Jammu and Kashmir. First, the internet has acted as a barrier between teachers and students. Second, effective communication does not result between the teacher and students, the way it happens in the offline mode of education.
Third, in the online mode of education, every student is not attending every teacher’s lecture because of limited access to the internet. It is primarily creating ruckus among students living in far-flung areas.
Sometimes, students are not audible to teachers in the online learning mode because of weak signals or other issues. Even sometimes, teachers do not know whether students have joined the Zoom app (a standard method of studying online). But, unfortunately, our students sometimes keep on joining. Still, in reality, they are engaging with other things which are very harmful and pernicious for students.
Even teachers are not delivering lectures to students continuously. As a result, they are putting students’ careers in peril, and even students are not keenly interested in studies in the online mode of learning.
It means an online learning model has created a lot of disinterest among teachers and students in literary pursuit. The government had terminated many teachers in Kashmir because of their long absence from duty in recent times, which was hardly happening before the online learning system was introduced.
Locking educational institutions for an indefinite period in Jammu and Kashmir is no longer productive because it will automatically affect students’ intellect. But, on the other hand, students will focus on rote learning in this mode of education by giving the excuse of closing educational institutions and not getting enough time to read things very strongly and effectively.
In other words, we can say that if this system of learning continues, we will again move towards darkness. So the government must focus on the quality education of students so that these students can produce excellence in their respective fields in future.
The government, in the state, tried diverse substitutes, from the 1990s till recent times, to set to work the education sector at its height. But at the same time, the educators and learners never won the satisfying remedy.
Claims can be conveyed on political turmoil, conflict-ridden zones, natural disasters, and governments’ failure from the 1990s to recent times. Education is a tool to rewrite the destiny of any nation. Without education, the tasteless atmosphere may survive, and cascades of oppression are the consequences.
The education policies and strategies must rotate the education sector on its axis. The process to overcome the education sector from the back step to the front step lies and shall strive by the intellectual layer and government of Kashmir.
About the writers:
Mir Tajamul Islam is pursuing a bachelors degree in legislative law (B.A LL.B) from the School Of The Law University Of Kashmir and can be reached at mirtajamulislam2@gmail.com.
Arif Rashid Malik has done a Master in political science from the University Of Kashmir and can be reached at arifrashid636@gmail.com.