Amir Tantray
Jammu, September 23: The education system of Jammu and Kashmir was one of the strongest in the country and region specific approach of having separate sessions was providing enough time to students to utilize most of the months.
But since the government has adopted uniform session for all the districts of Jammu and Kashmir, students of Kashmir valley and many districts of Jammu region which were earlier part of winter zone, are suffering a lot.
They get around six months of time in a year to study and complete the syllabus and rest of the months get waste in winter vacations, examination preparation and waiting for results. They have to compete with students of other parts of the union territory and country who get over nine months to study and complete syllabus.
Since last year Jammu and Kashmir government merged all the sessions into summer session and examination of all classes from class first to 12th are held in the months of April and May and the new academic session begins in the months of July and August.
For Kashmir valley and winter zone districts of Jammu region, the new academic session was beginning in the month of March and students were getting time till the month of November to prepare and appear in the examination in the month of December. The winter vacations months of January and February used to be a gap during which results of all classes were prepared and declared also. There was no extra time required for preparing results and students were getting much time to prepare.
In summer zone, new academic session begins in the months of July and August and they get time to study till the months of March and April before appearing in the examinations.
But after merging both the sessions, students of winter zone are suffering a lot which will get reflected in coming years when they will not be able to compete with students of other regions who get more and extra time to study.
The writer visited several areas of winter zone from the month of May to August in winter zone districts of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban and found that despite orders from government to start classes without waiting for results, students didn’t turn up for classes as they were not sure about their results. Teachers and administrative staff of these schools, mostly higher secondary and high schools, were concerned about the new system and absence of students from schools.
“Already in hilly areas, students of higher classes have to help their families in earning livelihood and attending school without knowing about their results of previous classes didn’t help the cause. We tried a lot to convince students of attending schools by going for provisional admissions but very few of them turned up,” said a teacher in Rajgarh belt of Ramban district.
He was of the opinion that changing session from winter to summer is proving fatal for the area.
“We don’t gel with summer zone session as it doesn’t suit us according to the weather conditions. The harsh winter months keep students away from schools and it was only during spring and summer months that schools were functioning in right direction. But spring months are now used for examination purpose and preparing results consume few summer months also,” said another teacher, falling in upper reaches of Kishtwar district.
He said that government should think about students and not about themselves.
The experiment of merging winter zone schools with summer zone has failed in the past as well and the erstwhile state government reversed the decision in the interest of students of winter zone and Kashmir valley.
