There is a tussle between private schools and Jammu Kashmir State Board of School Education. The JKBOSE have refused to issue the exam forms for the students enrolled in private schools which have their schools built over state land.
The students of these schools have been tagged and asked to be admitted in nearby government schools subject to the written will of their parents or guardians. This has triggered a massive panic across the parents and school authorities.
The private school’s association president GN Var said that the coercive measures of government over the last few years have already forced around 200 private schools to shut and in case the government continue to issue unfriendly and strict dictation, the private school industry may face tough challenges to survive.
Var even said that the government is running bulldozer over private schools in Kashmir, the hardest comment that one can expect. This shows the level of frustration private school authorities face and news reports suggest that the hundreds of schools have already decided to switch over to CBSE syllabus and its affiliation. The school authorities attribute their move to perpetual harassment by JKBOSE and believe once they move to CBSE, they may heave a sigh of relief.
Bringing under the ambit of law any institution is not a bad idea at all, however, it should not harm the interests of common people who are directly or indirectly associated with it. The government schools have failed on all fronts in offering the desired results and our education system is predominantly depending on private industry which stood to the test of times especially during the last three decades of uncertainty.
Government may spend billions of rupees in public education sector but results have been dismal always and never brought a cheer on the faces of people. Even at the highest level, the problems were never fixed though education sector has the highest number of employees among all the government departments, needless to speak about the available infrastructure.
Ironically, the failure of public sector education has never caught an eye of the government rather the successive regimes ran it as a job industry. The way it chases the private schools, the only hope for parents, it should equally focus on government run schools and fix the responsibility for desired results and quality education. Once it succeeds in offering an alternative to people, things may itself settle down.
