Improving education in J&K is like climbing a slippery slope

BY: D. DAVID PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 17, 2018

The sorry state of affairs in education in Kashmir is a matter of concern. However, instead of cussing anybody for such degeneration, one needs to find out factors responsible for such an alarming situation.

Unionism:

A district development commissioner in a random `education audit’ found that school teachers did not know their subjects well enough. So, he ordered a larger check. Reports of that check came close on the heels of a public spat in which a teachers’ forum head used objectionable language about the director of education.

The spat caused a public furor, for it not only indicated that transfers and postings are a bit of an industry, it also showed a small section of teachers has developed a dangerous desire of joining and retiring from their local school to satisfy which they get help from their union leaders who instead of behaving like teachers behave like ‘gundas’ while meeting the administrative heads of education. “The director does not know that he had taken on the son of a landlord”, boasted a teacher when he was transferred from his village school to a school of another locality. Pouring of comments on social media about the dangerous trend has become a matter of routine, now.

Unfortunately, these teachers hardly realize that they are passing the trend of suicidal degradation and contempt to the coming generation thus playing havoc not only with the system but with their own children as well. This blinkered mindset seems to have become more common than egalitarian values and mutual respect among fellow citizens cutting across religions and genders.

Militancy:

The decline in standards was partly caused by militancy. Many of today’s teachers were educated during the 1990s, when blasts, encounters, curfews and strikes disrupted life on an almost daily basis. More than 5,000 schools were destroyed in arson attacks. Students and teachers often could not reach their respective schools or colleges which affected education so badly. The exodus of Pandits from Kashmir is yet another factor had caused deterioration in teaching.

Examinations too became a major casualty of militancy in the early 1990s. In that period, there were reported instances of grey-bearded men doing papers instead of students. Nobody dared question their identity, for they often carried a pistol or some other weapon.Cheating became almost the norm. Even now, passing exams is often more about purchasing a degree than imbibing knowledge or values.

The late Mufti Sayeed tried hard to expand the reach of education when he was chief minister from 2002 to 2005. His government set up new universities and colleges in more or less every district. However, the then education minister, Harsh Dev Singh, acknowledged that the state did not have quality faculty for these institutions.

Unfortunately, most of us have just given up – “If they can get away with it, why should we bother”, they opine. In 2011, the principal and a couple of the staff were the only ones present at a government higher secondary school when I happened to walk in. Later on it was revealed that the thin presence of teachers was a routine there courtesy fear of militancy.

Over the past decade, there has been a spate of new private schools and colleges some of which, no doubt provide excellent education. However, if government schools witness shot fall in attendance; many private schools are guilty of paying peanuts to the teachers. Earlier this decade, one prominent private school in uptown Srinagar used to pay its bus drivers Rs 7,000 a month, and its teachers Rs 4,000.

Respectability and Conservatism:

Such a lack of respect and value for teachers is a major problem. Some teachers do not feel confident enough about their command over their respective subject. So, to avoid hollowness of their knowledge, they say shut up to their students when they ask them a question.

Some teachers reach for religious conservatism to cover up academic inadequacies. Even the best reputed private schools in today’s Kashmir are not entirely immune to such trends. According to a student, a teacher told his class that evolution was against his religion so he had nothing to say about that chapter in the curriculum.

Some parents objected to a teacher who was explaining the ideals of different religions. That sort of attitude certainly, does not augur well for the existing communal harmony in the society. For, it allows hate propaganda about other religions and ethnicities to spread. It promotes religion-based exclusivity, which willy-nilly tears apart the various parts of this ethnically diverse state.

Resistance to understanding alternative ideas and traditions extends seamlessly to dress behavior and codes. Some students claimed, that one teacher called a student in the classroom shameless for not following a religious dress code. Another asked a student how many times his father prayed daily. Many teachers reflexively call for `good’ behavior or values on the basis of religion. To be sure, not all teachers adopt this sort of attitude. Some point out that the Prophet of Islam urged people to go as far as China for education.

On the other hand, the trend of spreading conservatism is similar to what is happening elsewhere – based on conservative interpretations of various religious traditions. It pushes society towards hidebound rules, patriarchal attitudes and the force of power rather than of logic, debate and interaction. For example, the principal of a prominent government college made a rule that only women students could enter by the front gate, males from the back gate – and the opposite sexes must not be seen together on campus. And he was soon promoted to a very senior university post.

Power Clash:

Reforming the education system in Kashmir is a tough nut to crack. Here, it can be described as climbing a slippery mountain while it rains. Both recent incidents that exposed the shortfalls of the system have pitted two kinds of power – that of the administration and of teachers – against each other.

Teachers’ representatives came off badly, looking almost like mafia outfits. Public support turned towards administrators, because the teachers’ representative’s anger was directed at Shah Faesal, the popular young director of school education. The officer has become an icon ever since he topped the Union Civil Services Exam a few years ago.`Chocolate boy’ was the least offensive term that the teachers’ forum leader used against him.

A recording of his offensive speech went viral. Resultant public ire allowed the Governor’s administration to cancel all `attachment’ orders, which allowed a teacher to be at an administrative desk – even be part of the annual `durbar move’ between the state’s two capitals.

The one who expressed belligerence against Faesal has consequently been posted to a school in his home village. (This of course does not augur well for the education of students there – given the values he has displayed.) Faesal’s mentor, former education minister Naeem Akhtar, first stirred the hornet’s nest last year by transferring a teachers’ association leader from his administrative post in native Bandipora, back to a teaching job. The strategy apparently was to improve accountability by breaking the stranglehold of such representatives on teachers’ transfers and postings.

However, the power of teachers and administrators had joined about a decade ago to scuttle a grassroots movement in Ladakh to make school teachers accountable to village education committees. Sonam Wangchuk, who led that movement, fled the state under threat of arrest after the deputy commissioner of Leh backed the teachers’ associations against his movement.

The outpouring of support for top-down education reform by Akhtar and Faesal gives it a much better chance of success than any grassroots movement. However, the effort should be two-pronged: to make teachers feel included in the reform process, even as a carefully thought out long term policy to improve education training process.

The latter process will have to grapple with the power of B.Ed. colleges, which have mushroomed in Kashmir. Since B.Ed. is a one-year degree in this state, some B.Ed. colleges allow distance learning. Some are little more than degree shops.

Primary school teachers shape the future of next generation. To train them is a key challenge, an investment to promote peaceful coexistence and social harmony. For this, an extended and comprehensive programme is required. It could teach pedagogy, child psychology and expression skills, along with a gamut of social sciences, general knowledge and one subject specialization over a six year programme beginning from Class 11. That would be the same number of years teachers spend in higher secondary schools, colleges, and B.Ed. colleges.

Another critical challenge for education in this state is to cater to the aspirations of different social groups. For example, one of Wangchuk’s demands was that Ladakhi children should be taught their culture, and in their language. (The state’s official language is Urdu.). In the backdrop of above challenges, improving the otherwise worsened education in the state particularly in Kashmir is like climbing a slippery slope when it is raining.