Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
Recently, a well known private school in Srinagar denied admission to a special child who had lost his lower limbs in a bomb blast more than two years back in Tosamaidan area of Budgam. After our rigorous campaign on social networking site Facebook , the Kashmir Private Schools Association finally offered to admit this kid along with his elder brother free of cost. It is a matter of concern that well established private schools are yet to frame a policy towards admitting students from lower income groups. The judicial guidelines from Supreme Court as well as J&K High Court are not at all respected.
Special child Fayaz :
A seven year old boy namely Fayaz Ahmad Parray a resident of Drang Khag in District Budgam lost his both the lower limbs when he and his sister were fiddling with a live mortar shell in their village in May 2014. The shell had come down from Tosamaidan Field Firing Range (TFFR) sometime back. When the blast occurred Fayaz’s elder sister Simran died on the spot and Fayaz’s legs were amputated at Srinagar’s Army hospital. After a year Fayaz’s father Riyaz Ahmad Parray a labourer (mason) shifted to Srinagar city with this intention that he would admit his son Fayaz and his elder son Arif (9) in a good private school. As well established private schools were demanding huge fees , Riyaz preferred to admit both his kids in a low budget school at Batamaloo area of Srinagar. In June last year I got in touch with Riyaz through my colleague and RTI Activist Bashir Ahmad Malik who happens to be Riyaz’s neighbor. I was shocked to know that Government neither paid any compensation to Riyaz nor was any job provided to him under SRO 43. I along with my friends decided to help this family , but suddenly the summer agitation broke out in July 2016. From last one month I again started pursuing the case.
CM’s Intervention:
I took up this issue with Chief Minister through an email and sent all the details to her, but I was not sure she would act being so busy. The next very day Director School Education called Riyaz Ahmad Parray father of this special kid. He directed his officials to ensure Fayaz gets admission along with his brother in some good school. I suggested Riyaz to seek admission in a prestigious school located at Bemina which is close to Batamaloo where they are putting up at present in a rented room. When Riyaz went to meet school principal they out rightly denied to admit Fayaz. “The officials sitting in the office not only denied to admit my son , but they insulted me and I left the place within no time” said Riyaz. Director School Education Kashmir tried to intervene , but he also failed. Then another school was chosen , but they denied the admission to Fayaz saying he cannot climb stairs . But this is not at all correct. Fayaz has to be admitted in Class 1st and all the primary classes are located on Ground Floor of the building. They instead offered to admit his elder brother , but at the same time they told Riyaz (father of the kid) that if his son does not perform well , he would be rusticated. I was so sad to learn this , how is it possible that a village kid will know everything ? It was just to mount pressure on the poor labourer and Riyaz finally decided not to admit his kid in that school. I was really disturbed with all these developments and decided to go against the management of these schools. We got an overwhelming support when I posted this whole story on facebook. Many journalists contacted me , they filed reports on TV channels and after a few days Private Schools Association came forward. Their President G N Var agreed to admit Fayaz and his brother free of cost and asked Riyaz to contact him so that he would select a school for his kids from a list of 4 to 5 schools.
Some Pvt Schools are Public Authority :
If we go by the definition of Public Authority, the majority of the Private educational institutions especially private schools do not directly fall under the category of public authority because most of them are not substantially financed or funded by the Government directly or indirectly except having some controlling powers. But, there are many educational institutions in our state which are very much funded by the Government directly and even indirectly. Many educational institutions especially the “Christian Missionary” schools have been provided state land on lease by the Government on subsidized annual rent. It is a known fact that only two or three prominent Christian missionary schools of Srinagar are paying less than Rs 20,000 (twenty thousand) towards the Government as annual rent in lieu of the land provided by the Government under J&K Land Grants Act. The state land was provided to these schools many decades back under an agreement that they would provide free education to poor and downtrodden students of the state. These details have not only been revealed by the Revenue department authorities under RTI Act but during October 2012 the Legislative Council provided this information to the then Member of Legislative Council (MLC) from Srinagar Mohammad Ashraf Mir who is present MLA from Sonwar constituency .
The rent these missionary schools are paying towards the Government is 30 times less than the admission fees they are charging from the students. There is one missionary school which has not at all paid the annual rent from the last more than 35 years and from 1980 till date the annual rent is yet to be fixed. These details have been provided by Tehsildar Nazool Srinagar to an information seeker under State RTI Act few years back. The land provided by the Government to three Christian missionary schools in Srinagar on lease alone measures 212 kanals which is located in posh areas of Srinagar city like Ram Munshi Bagh, Raj Bagh and Sheikh Bagh. The market value of this prime land as on date is estimated to be more than Rs 1000 Crores (One thousand crores). Having been given such a huge chunk of land on highly subsidized rent (almost free of cost) by Government, how can the managements of these schools claim that they are not Public Authorities? How can they refuse to provide information under Right to Information Act (RTI) to the citizens of J&K? It is the citizens of state whose land worth Rs 1000 Crores is being utilized by the missionary schools, but when the same citizens demand accountability from the managements of these institutions, the school authorities behave in such a way as if they are the sole custodians of the land which is under their control. We cannot deny the role played by “Christian Missionary” schools towards upliftment of Kashmiri society. They have played a tremendous role and still continue to do so in the field of education but that does not mean they should not be held accountable by the people? We do have the right to ask these school authorities about their income and expenditure. We should be updated about the policies of these schools ? We should know how many admissions are given to students from economically weaker sections of the society annually ? Till date not a single Missionary school has come forward and offered to admit Fayaz?
Conclusion :
Government is supposed to give subsidy and other facilities to non profitable institutions, but why this facility be given to those schools which are highly profitable ? These schools charge hefty admission fees from students plus monthly fees, bus fees etc. Majority of the well established private schools in Jammu & Kashmir are openly violating supreme court directives as well which directs them to reserve 20 % of seats for those students who hail from lower economic groups. We hope J&K Government will frame a clear policy on the pattern of Delhi Government for offering admissions to poor students in private schools of state.
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