In a stark contrast, high-income families can afford private schools with superior education, while low-income families are forced to rely on government schools. Despite long-term investments, Govt schools often fail to deliver on the promise of quality education.
People don’t get equal opportunities of admissions in Government and Private schools due to the huge gap in the fee structure and leadership roles in Government and Private Schools. While children of the people of higher income groups have obviously access to quality education in private schools charging almost ten times more fee than the Government schools, the children of the people of low income groups are driven by compulsions to seek admissions in Government Schools where quality education dreams don’t come true even after decades of investments in public school infrastructure. Undoubtedly trained staff is available in Government schools but understaffing, lack of infrastructural facilities, accountability and teaching practices are not as impressive and attractive in Government schools as they are in private schools. There is disparity in educational facilities even in the private with most of the private schools lacking the facility of trained teaching staff as they prefer to engage even undergraduate job seekers as teachers on monthly salaries of few thousands. On the contrary Government schools are facing the crisis of enrollments due to lack of infrastructural facilities, an imbalanced transfer policy for teachers and accountability of the teachers. Fact remains that after carrying out annual enrollment drives in recent years the School Education Department this year introduced the practice of parent-teacher meetings (PTMs) a routine practice implemented by private schools for last more than two decades. However Government Schools have unfortunately introduced Parent Teacher Meetings (PTMs) more for drawing crowds and less for knowing the responses of the parents about the performance of their children in unit and term tests conducted twice a year. Fact remains that while private schools hold parent teacher meetings to know the responses of the parents about the performance of their children in both the unit and term tests twice a year, the Government Schools have unfortunately started the practice of parent teacher meetings not only with the parents but also with the local members of the panchayat committees. True it is that members of Panchayat committees have central role in the security and safety of school buildings but this issue can be better settled by school heads in separate discussions with the members of local panchayat committees. In fact the unwanted intervention of the local panchayat committees has hugely disturbed academic activities in Government schools in recent years. Better if the intervention of local panchayat committees is contained and controlled by the Government and their role is reduced only to security and safety of Government schools.
“Parent-teacher meetings are a vital tool for accountability in government schools, but they’re just one piece of the puzzle. The development of infrastructural facilities, a matter of equal urgency, also deserves serious attention from the Jammu and Kashmir School Education Department. The onus of bridging disparities in the education system ultimately rests on the department, especially following the Chief Minister’s recent statements on improving infrastructure and academic standards. The primary challenge is to enhance facilities and learning outcomes to extend the reach of government schools to the most remote areas of Jammu & Kashmir. The Chief Minister’s commitment to quality education hinges on adequate financing and academic restructuring, including a reform of the flawed teacher transfer policy.”
To raise the standards of education in Government schools wisdom demands that conduct of unit and term tests is declared mandatory for Government schools like private schools for the purposes of seeking a feedback from the parents about the performance of their children in unit and term tests at parent teacher meetings which need to be held only between the teacher, the student and the parent. While parent teacher meetings can be used as strong instrument of accountability at Government Schools the developmental of infrastructural facilities at Government School is equally a hard pressed matter deserving equally a serious attention and intervention of the school education. The onus of removing the disparities in school education system finally lies on the J&K School Education Department and more after the recent statement of Chief Minister on development of infrastructural facilities and academic standards in Government schools. The challenge obviously is to improve infrastructure and learning outcomes in Government Schools for increasing their reach from urban to remotest of the remote areas across Jammu & Kashmir. The commitment of Chief Minister over quality education in Government is finally subject to financing and academic restructuring including the fractured transfer policy of teachers for Government schools.
