Education, the soul of society
Mir Tajamul Islam, Arif Rashid Malik
Education is contemplated as a behaviour shaping means from the advent of the universe and undoubtedly it invests its positive gears in a man, as well as in society. Education and Kashmir, from the beginning, had stayed in a warm shell; outright, hand in hand.
Although education had remained a prospect towards a Kashmiri from time to time, a Kashmiri never looked out for the negative flank due to its full swing proficiency and consistent mindset. That is why the contributions, from Kashmir, in the education sector or due to education had prevailed in many shapes and forms.
Education (receiving and providing) is a reason to survive for some and a mudbank for many. The education sector in Kashmir read up an excruciating posture from the end of the year 1989; a crucial era that turned on the political uncertainties and suspense in the valley. The coin earned a flip and a different picture of Kashmir was stocked in the market (world). The new era thereafter, never mind reminding the horrible episodes of lighting up the educational institutions into flames. This flip rewrote the outlook of the education sector also.
Educationists, pro believers and spreaders, no doubt also the government made an effort to revolutionise the education sector and to plug the productive settings into it. The decades flowed in installing the new attitude to the education sector.
Suddenly, in a blinking action, the political tensions flared again from the year 2016 and in August 2019, Kashmir’s special status (articles 370 and 35A) was revoked which added fuel to the political (uncertain) flames. Yet another and a hefty outlook of the education sector is on the screen.
Nature exists and loves symmetry, which is a universal fact and this fact also achieve its meaning in the margins of operations. The world watched the catastrophic waves of covid-19; a virus (from December 2019) that is a big adversary to the economies, health sector including the education sector and is still rolling its roughness on the market (world).
This time, the education sector of the whole world stood knee bent including ours. The education sector of the valley was so far (already) in the stroke, so came to be hot-headed for the educationists, people and government to set it on the zenith once again.
Currently, no one asserts an attempt to compensate for the failure of the education sector so far, no not even the government. The online education policy is in a race post-August 2019, but not a single intellectual, academician, student is complacent so far. The government, instead of switching the education to the strength, is aiming to survive the contemporary education on the online strategy nutriment.
The reactions of Covid 19 brought and make the education sector cognizant of the online education policy; that program that was never, even sampled by the education sector of an underdeveloped state like Kashmir. This policy appeared a turtle race in the field of education.
Even though we are living in the age of technology this doesn’t mean that technology is inclusive and feasible for everyone. Because the online mode of education is not productive to everyone in Kashmir. As a large number of students can hardly afford it.
On the other hand, smartphone is a fundamental prerequisite for it. Having a Smartphone of ten thousand or twenty thousand is always chimaera and mirage for a poor student. In other words, we can say that the online mode of education is exclusively beneficial for those students to well off families. It is because of these aspects of adversities, poor people are deprived of the right to education at a very little age.
Internet blockade is already a crucial concern in Kashmir. Internet blockade at times is always hampering the study process of students very badly. On the other side, online education needs 24 hours of internet for students so that students can continue their studies smoothly and effectively.
Even at the outset of the pandemic, when the offline mode was switched to online mode in Kashmir, the students were excluded from 4g internet from time to time, which forged a lot of chaos in the research work of Scholars and hampered their academic literary taste as well.
Online education has degraded the quality of teaching in Jammu and Kashmir. The Internet has acted as a barrier between teachers and students. Second effective communication is not resulting between the teacher and students, the way it is happening in the offline mode of education. Third, in the online mode of education, every student is not attending every lecture of teacher because of limited access to the internet and mostly it is creating ruckus among those students who are living in far-flung areas.
Sometimes students are not audible to teachers in the online mode of learning because of weak signals or having other issues. Even sometimes teachers are not fully acquainted whether students have joined the Zoom app (a most common method of studying through online mode) or students sometimes keep on joining, but in reality, they are engaging with other things which are very harmful and pernicious for students.
Even Teachers are not delivering lectures to students continuously. They are putting the careers of students in peril and even students are not keenly interested in studies in the online mode of learning. It means an online mode of learning has created a lot of disinterest among teachers as well as students in literary pursuit. Government has terminated a large number of teachers in Kashmir because of their long absence from duty in recent times, which was hardly happening before the online system of learning was introduced.
Locking educational institutions for an indefinite period is no longer going to be productive because it will automatically affect the intellect of students. On the other hand, students will focus on rout learning in this mode of learning by giving the excuse of closing educational institutions and not getting enough time to read things very strongly and effectively.
In other words, we can say that if this system of learning continues we will again move towards darkness. So government must focus on the quality education of students so that these students can produce excellence in their respective fields in future.
The government, in the state, tried diverse substitutes, from the 1990s till recent times, to set to work the education sector at its height. But at the same time, the educators and learners never won the satisfying remedy.
Claims can be conveyed on political turmoil, conflict-ridden zone, natural disasters, and failure of governments as well, from the 1990s to recent times. Education is a tool to rewrite the destiny of any nation. Without education, the tasteless atmosphere may survive and cascades of oppression are the consequences.
The education policies and strategies must rotate the education sector on its axis. The process to overcome the education sector from the back step to the front step lies and shall strive by the intellectual layer and government of Kashmir.
(Mir Tajamul Islam is pursuing a bachelors degree in legislative law (B.A LL.B) from the school of the law university of Kashmir and Arif Rashid Malik has done Master in political science from the University of Kashmir)
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