When common sense took a holiday

What can only be described as an absurd experiment in bureaucratic stubbornness, Kashmir has been put through a rather strange adjustment in the academic calendar.

The shift, like most of the political diktats descending from above, was executed without so much as a courteous nod to the people whom it hurts the most: students, teachers, school administrators, and even parents. It is as if education mandarins have decided to play a game with Kashmir’s future because why not? It seems our bureaucracy has found a new playground and our students are the fresh batch of lab rats.

For years, the educational schedule of Kashmir possessed a simple logical rhythm. Then would come the exams in October and November, just when the dreaded winter was going to set in. Now, however, thanks to the brainwave of the genius policymakers and the intellectual bureaucracy of Kashmir, our students wait a whole five months – yes, five months - till March or April to appear for their exams.

That is where the tragicomedy begins. Instead of such winter months spent in preparing for the next academic year, students wait for exams that won’t come.

The previous October-November session used to allow the students to make use of the winter break by spring-time. But those days are behind us now. Now, students who, from December to February, wait for hours rather than laying solid foundations for their following courses are simply condemned to a monotonous limbo. The long winter break which acted as a breather before new academic beginnings has now become a drawn-out purgatory of waiting.

And all for what? For an education policy that imagines Kashmir in some manner as some kind of singular experimental case. Just imagine the Kashmiri students – poor guinea pigs running on some bureaucratic treadmill, uncertain about what they are running toward. Let us see what happens, the policymakers shout with gleeful shrugs, tweaking here, pulling lever there, as if the futures of our students were something they could just tinker with.

Worse, no one in charge bothered to ask the stakeholders: not the schools, not the teachers, not the parents, and certainly not the students directly affected by this outrageous disruption. But then again, when has consulting actual experts or involving the public ever been part of the grand political blueprint for Kashmir?

If it weren’t tragic, it might have been funny. One could even call it an incredible farce. In the name of modernisation and streamlining Kashmir, this move was orchestrated, which quite ironically, left out all the specific geography of the place, its harsh winters, and the academic world that had developed over the years. Apparently, our climatic changes, schooling culture, and common sense are not nearly as important as those pragmatic goals of appeasing some arbitrary, countrywide educational checklist.

But wait-there is a faint glimmer of hope on the horizon! Here, Minister for Education Sakina Itoo hinted at the possibility of returning to the original schedule that existed at the academically flawless October-November schedule. In fact, the expression to change the session from next year is now made. Yes, you have it right. The same old schedule that had worked seamlessly for years till it was shattered in the name of reform. An irony of welcome is that the government is finally coming around to realising that maybe, just maybe, the system as it was wasn’t so broken after all.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if, before rushing to implement drastic changes, policymakers took the time to consider local realities? If only they respected the voices of those who actually understand the implications – teachers, parents, educational analysts? But no. Instead, we have become the reluctant subjects of a far-reaching experiment in educational engineering that feels more like a cruel joke at our expense.

Meanwhile, the Kashmiri students pay the price of these lab experiments – months lost and valuable learning time flushed down the drains, all while politicians and bureaucrats sit in their air-conditioned offices, blissfully disconnected from the realities of the ground in Kashmir. One can only hope this latest flirtation with reforms is corrected sooner than later – before another academic year is lost to the whims of political gamesmanship.

But hey, why stop at education? Kashmir could make a wonderful lab for more innovative policies, right? What’s next – shifting the summer to winter? Ending weekends? Whatever the case may be, here in Kashmir, we have learned to expect the unexpected.