Tangmarg school’s plight exposes cracks in education reforms

Tangmarg, Oct 19: Away from the hustle and bustle and surrounded by the lush green forests, the Government Primary School Qazipora in Tangmarg education zone has been operating from a dingy room for the last more than 12 years.

The condition of the school deflates the claims of bringing reforms in the education sector.

The school has remained out of focus of the School Education Department (SED) and around 50 students from five classes are crammed in a single room of this school.

Such schools exist in Kashmir at a time when the SED is making tall claims of reforms in the education sector, particularly at the primary level.

The official apathy faced by the school came to the fore after the Member of Parliament from north Kashmir, Engineer Rashid visited the school and was surprised to see a primary school functioning from a single room for a decade.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed to look at these kids at this school. I apologise to these students. They do not come from rich families like our MLAs and bureaucrats and that is why they are deprived of basic facilities in school,” Rashid told reporters during his visit to the school.

The MP was informed that a new building worth Rs 45 lakh was sanctioned for the school but the Forest Department had not allowed the construction of the school to date.

“If this is the forest land then how was this single room constructed here? Why did not the Forest Department follow its rules at that time? It is ironic that people are allowed to construct clubs and hotels on forest land but hurdles are created for construction of a school building,” he said.

Rashid said Primary School Qazipora was not only such a school but there were dozens of the schools which had become victims of official apathy.

“We have seen such schools in Rajouri, Poonch, and other areas where the Forest Department does not allow construction of school buildings. But other constructions are allowed,” he said.

Hitting out at the Forest Department, he said the department was running a parallel government and had ruined the future of the kids of Qazipora school.

“The Forest Department is not alone responsible for this but district administration and SED have ignored this school as well. My advice to them will be not to eat anything for a day to have solidarity with the students whose careers have been ruined by these officials,” he said.

According to the head of the school, after the inordinate delay by the authorities to construct a new school building for the students, the residents forcibly shifted students of two classes to the nearby Panchayat Ghar.

“This school has few more rooms but the building got completely damaged some 12 years ago and the construction of the new building is awaited so far,” the head of the school said.

The Member Parliament while referring to government claims that students were given laptops instead of stones said the laptops do not serve any purpose if students were deprived of the basic facility of a classroom.

“J&K administration used to brag about building Naya Kashmir, but those slogans have flattened today,” he said.

Rashid urged the newly-appointed Minister for School Education Department Sakina Itoo to get a firsthand account of the school and ensure that the students were not deprived of the basic facilities.