In a welcome move, the Jammu and Kashmir government has restored the pre-2022 academic calendar by switching the session back to November-December for non-board classes up to Class 9. Earlier in 2022, the Lieutenant Governor’s administration, in a bid to bring the academic calendar at par with the rest of the country, decided to implement a uniform academic session across the union territory. However, this calendar in no way suited the cold climate in the Valley with an extended winter break for the academic institutions. It disrupted the academic culture as it has always existed in the region: students completed their annual exams in November-December, attended winter tuitions for the next class, and began the new academic session in March of the following year.
But in 2022, the LG government arbitrarily took the decision to bring the academic session in line with the other parts of the country. There was no effort to consult the civil society or the people at large about a decision that impacted them directly. The administration stuck to the decision despite the palpable widespread public resentment, something it shouldn’t have done. In hindsight, it was one of the steps that put the previous administration at odds with the public sentiment. And now its reversal by the elected government within the first two weeks of assuming power has won it some public goodwill. The regional parties and parents welcomed the move.
That said, in recent years, the functioning of academic institutions has drastically improved. As Lieutenant Manoj Sinha himself said at a function in February this year: Kashmir now witnesses no shutdowns and extended unrests that disrupted every aspect of life including education. He rightly mentioned that hartal calendars had now been replaced by school calendars. These gains certainly need to be built upon and they hopefully will be.
Going forward, the government should work towards improving the quality of education. It can begin with government schools where academic standards have often been found less than satisfactory forcing the parents to send their wards to private schools who charge hefty fees. Private schools, in turn, too have turned out to be more expensive to study than academically superior to government schools – albeit with honourable exceptions. Ditto for coaching centres which are becoming more money-minting businesses than geared to truly enhance the career prospects of the youth. Now that the government has restored the academics to its normal weather-friendly calendar, it can move on to addressing the more pressing challenges in education.
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