Sayed Aneesul Haque
In July this year, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, indeed, the people of India, witnessed an unexpected happening when a promise made by a political figure was fulfilled within two hours! A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a gathering in Uri that the local Kendriya Vidyalaya would begin to enroll students for Class 11 from this month; the HRD officials went into a tizzy, rushing to clear all formalities. “In flat two hours, all hurdles were cleared to allow the Uri KV to start the new class from this academic year”, said a senior ministry official. For students in Uri who currently travel 30 kilometers to Srinagar for higher secondary education, this was an enormous relief.
Seeing this generous move by the PM, students residing in other remote areas of Jammu and Kashmir were filled with a mixed sense of hope and jealousy. Hope, because they have been undergoing the same drill of walking long distances to get an education; and jealous because they know they may have an indeifinite wait for such a miracle to be repeated in their village.
A similar group of students and parents are waiting for the promises of their local political leaders to be fulfilled in the distant village of Khanetar, ten kilometers from the district headquarters, Poonch. Located two hundred and fifty kilometers from the winter capital of the northern most Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Poonch is often in news for ceasefire violations at the border. But the rest of the nation knows virtually nothing about the development challenges of the people inhabiting this sensitive region. Their education, employment, livelihood, health and water issues are rarely discussed at the national level – or indeed, the state level – unless a cross-border controversy is involved.
Khanetar, the largest village under Tehsil Haveli, was given the facility of a high school in 1986. Twenty eight years have passed, but the school stands in the same dilapidated condition as it did then, with no infrastructural support to the students who often complain of the quality of education being imparted.
Devoid of basic facilities, the villagers feel that education is the only basis of hope that they can pass on to their children. They try their best to make their children educated, productive citizens, only to have their hopes dashed at every step. Testimony to the sad situation of education in Khanetar is the school building itself. “There are eleven rooms in our school. One each for staff, administration, library, laboratory and kitchen, leaving only six rooms for holding thirteen classes. Every class has one section except the 9th and 10th that have three and two sections, respectively. These numbers reveal the pathetic conditions under which students are forced to study in Khanetar”, rues Nikhat Bukhari, a Class 10 student from the same school.
Classes 1 to 6 are conducted in the verandah, irrespective of the weather. “Come summer, winter or rain, we travel to school covering long distances to study under such difficult situation. Then we are expected to compete in various competitive exams at the national level with peers from metropolitan citieswho face no such challenges,” shares another Class 10 student, Ajaz Ahmad.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the Central Government’s flagship programme in partnership with State Governments, is mandated to open new schools in habitations that do not have school facilities. It is also intended to strengthen the existing infrastructure in school with provisions like additional classrooms, toilets, drinking water, maintenance grants and school improvement grants. Schools with inadequate number of teachers are given provisions for additional teachers, while the quality of teaching is being improved with extensive training, grants for developing teaching-learning material and strengthening of the academic support structure at the cluster, block and district levels. But these good intentions provide no relief to the students of Khanetar High School.
Ironically, Khanetar was given the title of a “Model Village” in 2012 but what is the significance of the title when the youth is being deprived of basic facility like quality education?
The Rural Development Department appears to have overlooked the flaws of these model villages as is evident in the recent address of the Minister for Rural Development and Panchayats, Ali Mohammad Sagar, where he said that an era of peace and prosperity has been ushered in the State. “Development of the State has been accelerated and several schemes have been undertaken in different fields like RDD, R&B, PHE, Health, Education which have ensured the socio-economic transformation of the people, besides ensuring that the benefit percolates to the ground level. Besides, the Rural Development Schemes have also been instrumental in providing much needed employment opportunities to the people living in rural areas and also bringing them at par with that of urban areas,” said the Minister, while addressing the public meetings during his extensive tour of Poonch district, where he also laid the foundation stone of model villages being constructed by the Department of Rural Development at Lathoong, Surankote.
Such blatant statements by the leaders appear to be tall claims intended to appease villagers who fall for these false promises each time elections are around the corner. According to Sayyed Shaukat Hussain Shah, a teacher who retired in 2003 from the same school, says, “Khanetar is the largest village of Tehsil Haveli. Despite the obvious need, the demand for upgrading it to a Higher Secondary level has not been fulfilled. Political leaders use it as a bait to fetch votes from the innocent villagers.”
Even this year, most villagers have decided to vote in the party that ensures the Higher Secondary status to the school. “We have no other option. Students either go to Poonch or to Chandak in the absence of a higher secondary school in Khanetar, wasting a lot of time and money on traveling. The boys managesomehow, , but the real price is paid by the girls, many of whom tend to drop out due to this reason,” says Najma Bukhari, an ex-student from the Khanetar High School.
The results of the upcoming assembly elections in the state later this year will stand testimony to the promised – and elusive – good news.
(The author is a student of Government Degree College Poonch)
(Charkha Features)
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