Hilal beigh
Kashmir happens to be one of the few Union Territories in India which has made education free for all its citizens starting right from the grassroots level. Yet, the literacy rate over here slumbers at just 54% which is around 10% lower than the national literacy rate which is also not too high to boast of. The national literacy rate in the country stands just above 64%. The situation of women’s education is worse when compared with men. Less than half the population of Kashmiri women is literate when compared with the national average of literate women in the country. The dismal state of literacy in Kashmir can be gauged by the fact that barring Srinagar, the literacy rate in Kashmir is comparable with the state of Bihar, the least literate state of the country.
The government is very generous when it comes to spending on education. According to official government data, the public expenditure on education is around 6% of the state domestic product. Since the probability of erroneous statistics is very high, one needs to be cautious in drawing any sort of conclusion. Anecdotal evidence and journalistic references suggest that education has been severely disrupted in those districts which are most affected by militancy/insurgency. This is the apt explanation of the visible drop in enrollments of males in high schools. The low standard of awareness also contributes negatively towards school dropouts.
The impact of conflicts and militancy on school education is often overlooked. Education in today’s time can be a sustainable tool for achieving post-conflict peace and ensuring stability and normalcy in the region. It is also a means of instilling a ray of hope and positivity, as well as offering opportunities to young people who are enveloped by violence. One of the main challenges of education in a conflict situation is the discontinuities it creates. This has an adverse impact on the academic results of students as well as on their psychological and social development. Militancy has brought the education system of this generation onto its knees. During the first half of the 1990s, schools were either closed or there were too many hindrances onto the roads leading to them. Schools were treated as ideal breeding grounds for the militants since they saw school going youth as vulnerable minds which were easy to plant with their nefarious ideas and agendas of radicalism. As a result, the security forces often set up temporary camps near the schools and regular searches of the educational institutions were inevitable.
The youth was lured into the vicious trap of “gun culture” which eventually led to an uprising and subsequent military actions during the 1990s. Damaged and burnt school buildings in the 1990s had negative effects on the overall education system, all attributable to the insurgency in Kashmir. The apathical result was an education system that longed for funding. While a great deal of infrastructure has emerged over the following years, the urgent needs for educational aids, resources and programs to strengthen the faculty have been completely neglected. When the Indian Army inaugurated Kashmir’s first Army Public School at Pahalgam in early 2008, it paved the way for the resurrection of Kashmir’s education system, which had been totally destroyed by two decades of insurgency.
By the time the government took steps to fix the dilapidated education system, the flawed system had already produced a large number of young teachers, creating a problem with the quality of educators. Pressure from parents and society has led to students pushing for medicine, engineering or computer science before finally opting for arts. A generation thus left educational institutions with degrees but trained against independent thought process. The emptying of the education system meant that dozens of young people wandered aimlessly around with degrees but were barely employable. It did not stop them, even if they did not think the government owed them a job.
The education process in Kashmir has been facing a mammoth challenge from the insurgency since past and present and here comes the question of how to deal with this challenge to bring about improvement in this part of the country. In fact, the insurgency in the past and today is a major obstacle that has turned the education system in the valley into an abominable state.
The insurgency has caused many problems such as frustration among the unemployed youth; less visible economic development, psychological tension and these cases are considered as a major factor in the study of the educational structure of Kashmir. Without proper historical knowledge of Kashmir, all efforts to revive the education system will be futile and shall meet a dead end. The policy makers need to develop a concrete fool-proof strategy towards the education sector of Kashmir. The ongoing insurgency is a major obstacle to the promotion and development of education in Kashmir. After all it is rightly said that “Education is the key to any region’s peace, prosperity and tranquility.”
