“Listening one side and leaving others particularly parents unheard is a blow to intellectualism and more so in case of school education.”
Experiences of decades have shown that quality of basic social services particularly education and health is best judged by the people for whom such services are meant. Unfortunately private schools in Jammu & Kashmir have set a bad reputation of getting into unwanted controversies on the commencement of annual academic sessions either over their admission policies or the fee structure norms of J&K Fee Fixation & Regulation Committee (J&K FFRC ) a statutory body of Jammu & Kashmir Government established by it decades ago for regulating the fee structure of private school. In yet another attempt to divert the attention of the policy planners and administrators of the Jammu & Kashmir Government from growing criticism on the lack of infrastructural facilities and flagrant violations of free structure norms of the J&K FFRC the Private Schools last week hosted an event for a national influencer Wali Rehmani just to seek intellectual support from him on working of private education sector on the basis of his visit to just 11 private schools selectively choosen by the organisers for his visit in Srinagar. Rehmani may have inspired thousands of students as a top educationist of the country but he won’t have at all any knowledge about the practices and procedures of admissions and fee structures the Private Schools in Jammu &Kashmir are enforcing in violation of the guidelines of the Jammu & Kashmir School Education Department, J&K FFRC and the J&K Board of School Education just to exploit thousands of students of Jammu & Kashmir. Listening one side and leaving others particularly parents unheard is a blow to intellectualism and more so in case of school education. Rehmani says that schools fees are lowest in J&K but unfortunately he does not have any knowledge about the flagrant violation of J&K FFRC’s fee norms by J& K Private Schools and paltry sums they pay as monthly salaries to teachers in the range of just Rs 3 to 10 thousands . Unfortunately Rehmani won’t even imagine that the fear of termination always keeps teachers of private schools in a state of psychological stress as recruitments in private schools are not governed by well established practices and procedures.
“Further easing regulations for more and more private schools as demanded by Rehhmani would consequently ease the practice and process of shutting down Government schools which private schools want and as such Rehmani’s suggestion would only further the causes of the encroachment of public education system which for all good and reasons rests on the growth and expansion of Government Schools. Unfortunately a myopic vision of private schools has been endorsed by a national influencer without going down at the grass roots for knowing the common man’s allegations against practices and procedures of admissions and school fee pursued by private schools in Jammu & Kashmir. After all insiders in a room can better report about a conflict taking place in the room than the outsiders narrated the tale of the conflict by one or two people for their own vested interests.”
Rehmani many not be also knowing the fact that not even in a single private school the underprivileged are granted admissions despite virtually begging before them for it year after year. Private schools illegally conduct written tests even for nursery classes which is flagrant violation of the right to education act. Rehmani’s suggestion that 25% of the seats be reserved for underprivileged won’t be at all acceptable to J&K Private Schools in view of their never ending practices and precedences already pursued by them for decades together. Rehmani may not be also knowing the fact that some of the famed private schools are running primary classes from Srinagar and other higher classes from adjoining districts of Central Kashmir and such a bad trend hugely upsets the students both physically and as well as psychologically. Ironically most of the private schools run from rented buildings declared unsafe by the R& B department of Jammu & Kashmir Government are not shifted despite warnings from authorities of School Education Department year after year. Rehmani’s call for removal of restrictive policy on registration of private schools is quite surprising as registration process for private schools is not as hassle free anywhere in the country as it is in Jammu & Kashmir. Private schools set up in the areas where Government schools are already established is a flagrant violation of the basic norms as the minimum distance between two schools as per Government rules has to be less than three kilometers. Further easing regulations for more and more private schools as demanded by Rehhmani would consequently ease the practice and process of shutting down Government schools which private schools want and as such Rehmani’s suggestion would only further the causes of the encroachment of public education system which for all good and reasons rests on the growth and expansion of Government Schools. Unfortunately a myopic vision of private schools has been endorsed by a national influencer without going down at the grass roots for knowing the common man’s allegations against practices and procedures of admissions and school fee pursued by private schools in Jammu & Kashmir. After all insiders in a room can better report about a conflict taking place in the room than the outsiders narrated the tale of the conflict by one or two people for their own vested interests.
