Since economic and cultural growth of any society or community hinges upon the quality of its human resources, the focus has to be on quality education in government run schools for the purposes of starting a new chapter of competition in the primary education system in Jammu & Kashmir. While the quality education in government run schools has become an issue of grave concern for both the educationists and as well as the people of Jammu & Kashmir, a rural-urban divide in education, in terms of facilities and quality is the issue deserving immediate attention and intervention of J&K Government’s School Education Department. As Schools in inaccessible backward rural areas are the most neglected, and the standard of teaching in such areas is also deplorable, the rural-urban divide in the primary education system is cause of concern for both the Government and as well as the people . Equally irrefutable fact is also that government schools have a poor record of performance. Unfortunately infrastructure in government schools is not upgraded the way it should have been upgraded in recent years. Poorly maintained buildings, dilapidated classrooms, ill-equipped libraries and laboratories, lack of sanitation facilities and even drinking water are issues that students still face in government schools. The student-teacher ratio is another tale to tell. Improvement is though noticeable in the curriculum and teaching methodologies but emphasis is being laid on developing reading and writing skills with no focus on holistic education. These factors, coupled with other social circumstances have led to alarmingly high dropout rates in the Jammu & Kashmir. Most schools are miles away and largely inaccessible to the students. While noting that adequate number of elementary schools is to be found at a “reasonable distance from habitations”, the government can’t refute the reports that this is not the case with regard to secondary schools and colleges in Jammu & Kashmir. It has been noticed in several independent education survey reports that students of inaccessible remote areas eligible for secondary and senior secondary education still remain outside the school system today and Government is yet to take note of this issue also.
While complete privatisation of primary education system is certainly not the answer due to fact that private schools are in total disagreement with the government over the policy of free education to children of even economically weaker sections and underprivileged classes of the society, it has become imperative for the government to upgrade the basic facilities in the government schools to make them really epicenters of quality education even in the remotest of the remote areas across Jammu & Kashmir.
These high rates of school dropouts have though attracted intervention of the school education department with the launch of enrollment drive in government but unless and until the facilities in the government schools are not upgraded the ongoing enrolment drive won’t make much difference. While complete privatisation of primary education system is certainly not the answer due to fact that private schools are in total disagreement with the government over the policy of free education to children of even economically weaker sections and underprivileged classes of the society, it has become imperative for the government to upgrade the basic facilities in the government schools to make them really epicenters of quality education even in the remotest of the remote areas across Jammu & Kashmir.
