Around 1 lakh students to be affected, Kashmir heading for educational crisis
“Earlier students thrown out from outside, now schools sealed in Kashmir too”
Srinagar, March 02: Private Schools Association of Jammu and Kashmir has condemned the government decision to seal private schools run by Fallah e Aam Trust (FAT) as the situation will impact around one lakh students and push Kashmir into an educational crisis.
The Association said that FAT is purely concerned with education and it has nothing to do with the politics. “These are government recognised private schools teaching syllabus prescribed by the Board of School Education.
These are like any other private school following all the rules of government,” said G N Var Chairman PSAJK. “It is not just one or two schools, but they are around 325 schools giving education to one lakh students. Any attempt to close them will have huge ramification on education sector”
The Association said that the step to ban the schools at this juncture will magnify the already crisis ridden education sector. “At this time thousands of students have been thrown out of colleges outside the State. We are still grappling to deal with that and trying to accommodate those students. Now government is pushing us down the hill by closing schools inside the Kashmir too. So where will we go,” said Var. “We are running out of capacity to deal with the situation. It will push the State into educational crisis which is already in a huge mess.”
The Association said that most of the students at these schools are from poor families as this was one of the only options where they did get quality education at minimum fee. The closure of schools will affect only the poor class of people. “Those poor parents who had dreamt of their wards getting quality education will be heart-broken. It will shatter the dream of an entire class of society,” said Var. “Government should at least take care of interests of children. These children have nothing to do with politics.”
The Association called on the government to reconsider the decision to ban the FAT run school as it is an apolitical organisation aimed to give quality education to masses. “Treat FAT separate from Jamaat e Islami. If you have any doubts check their syllabus or inspect them routinely, but do not close down these schools,” said Var. “The schools also employ more than 10000 people and all of them would be rendered jobless. The ban is going to hit us both ways.”
The Association condemned the harassment of school management of some schools which is aimed to destroy such schools.
