On private coaching centers

Javed Mughal
Recently the Govt. ordered the broad-based inspection of all the private coaching institutions operating across the state with the intention to see whether the required facilities at the said private coaching centers for the students and the tutees are available or not. I would like to call it a welcome step by the Govt. with certain objections calling the very credibility of the school education department in question and challenging its efficiency level too.  The point of concern is that this step is being initiated on the direction of the Hon’ble  High Court of Jammu and Kashmir whereas the fact is these coaching institutes have been functioning in our state for last over many decades together but the system was too incompetent to find any problem with these coaching centers till it was hit on the head by the Hon’ble High Court of Jammu and Kashmir. Even the department of education, that stands appointed only to ensure the quality based education and be vigilant about all the unwanted developments inside the educational system, was in slumber and inefficient enough to find any problem with these coaching centers and their own area of operation as well. I am shocked to affirm that I have never seen any department in our state so handicapped and ineffective as that of Education as a whole and school education in particular that stands alive with a major chunk of irresponsible, incompetent and unethical lot of academic and administrative functionaries. It is the matter of great surprise that a non- educational component of the system i.e. the Hon’ble Judiciary had to come forward and awaken the educational system about its duties. This is like Mr. A’s coming to Mr. X from outside just to let the later know that all is not well happening inside his family. The Education Department has grown deplorably thick skinned and corrupt so much so that it has recently been declared by some Monitoring Agency to be third in the line of the most corrupt departments of the state.  It would not be out of place to say that these officers who were supposed to ensure the quality education in schools and stem the tide of this pestilence of educational commercialization in fact acted as touts and brokers of these coaching institutes. Let me go a step further to say that this potent and ever-burgeoning growth of coaching institutes is basically the byproduct of the routine negligence and sheer incompetence of the concerned officers of the Education department and the miasmic system of education in their Schools. It is obvious that the one who has fine house of his own to live in with all the amenities to enjoy would never like to reside in an acute rated rented house and spend money lavishly.
Now-a-days it hardly matters that the Govt. schools do not demand much from the students, they extend free uniforms and free mid- day meals etc but what matters the most for the parents is whether a healthy education is provided in schools or not and the bare fact remains the future of the students in Govt. Schools, because of the ineffective and non-productive control of the Educational Authorities, the fruitless presence of many inefficient teachers and the criminal silence of the competent teachers, is at stake and quite bleak too. Should we send our children to the Govt. Schools where there is no infra-structure at all? Should we send our children to the schools that have almost been converted into stables, sheds and the kennels or toilets or about to crumble any moment posing a threat to the lives of the innocent students at every tick of clock? I am shocked and surprised as well to think as to why have these CEOs and ZEOs and Directors and other concerned officers closed their eyes and ears and grown insensitive down the years to note all this non-sense happening in their own schools? Don’t they feel ashamed at issuing directions to the private teaching centers impressing upon them to ensure the maintenance of quality especially when the plight of their own schools is deplorable? Why don’t they pay attention to improve their own condition first and then knock at others’ doors? Have these CEOs ever visited the fields of their department and if so haven’t they got shocked at their own fate and criminal incompetence? These are basic questions which need to be replied first by the School Education Department and then they ought to think of others.
It is my free advice to the department of education and all other concerned incumbents across the state that while deliberately pointing their index finger towards private coaching institutes, they must not ignore three other fingers that are automatically pointed towards them. 20 students and 50 teachers; 500 students and 3 teachers; attachment culture, sub-let services culture, Govt. teachers running their business at the cost of the students career are in fact the black stigma on the face of the education department and leaves a big question mark on the sense and conscience of the concerned officers who have been kept to remove all these anomalies but they are just mute and motionless spectators since their jaws have been stuffed with bribe-money.  I am not at all in favour of private schools and coaching centers either and I want them to be closed and banned with immediate effect but the fact remains that no solid and healthy option or substitute we have. Where we should send our children having kept them away from the coaching centers is still a mystery and big issue for all of us because the plight of the Govt. schools is deplorable and despicable. At least  parents can’t afford to waste their children by sending them to the Govt. schools sans the required basic infrastructure. A team of some stereotyped and mechanical officers now a days is running here and there to inspect the coaching centers and impressing upon them to get their institutes registered without any clear guidelines as to where and how these coaching centers are to be registered. At the moment there is no authorized office chamber in the state where these coaching centers can get them registered. All these coaching institutes go to the Education Direction Office and get confused to find even their Director confused over it. Wherever the proprietors of these Coaching installations go, they are likely to be discouraged and dejected to find no responsible office to register them. Our authorities are in fact somnambulant grappling and groping for everything while asleep. Their contours of action are clear even to them and they are out in the field to ensure qualities. In India there has been a breathing culture for centuries where the incompetents rule the potential and those who get something through backdoors or on the strength of some special concessions talk of merit and this is the only reason that this country could have no respectable niche in the world despite having thousands year-old history behind it. No other country of the world has been subjugated so much as we the Indians have been done for the simple reason that we were not intelligent and even though we had some caliber, we were dishonest and corrupt.
Coaching centers can’t be suppressed until and unless the Govt. defunct schools are rejuvenated to the level of these coaching abodes. Coaching centers have become the necessary evil of the parents at the moment at a time when the education department has almost snowballed into a flop-show. The concerned authorities, instead of running after others, must take a pledge to introspect first and fix the stump and rump of the nuisance around.

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