 Javaid Naikoo
Early Times Report
Srinagar, July 20: As part of reforming school education system across the state, the government has decided to overhaul 3,000 schools and construct 100-125 new schools under the centrally sponsored Sarva Shiksha-Abhiyan (SSA) scheme.
To curb prevailing lawlessness in government schools across the state and replace the schools functioning in dilapidated and rented structures with concrete government buildings, the government is merging 3,000 schools along with their staff in nearby schools as per requirement.
Talking to Early Times, Director, School Education Showkat Hussain Beg said as part of shaping school education system it has become necessary to shape roll of students and teachers as per requirement.
"In this regard government is initially merging 3,000 schools to meet all important student-teacher ratio," he said. "It is not closing down the schools as rumour is being circulated. We are shaping school education system and for that we need to merge schools with less or no roll of students in nearby schools so that by combining the two such schools with similar condition, one school with required student-teacher ratio can be created to function properly."
Beg admitted that schools functioning in rented structures at many places are in a dilapidated condition. However, he said, government is constructing its own school buildings under the SSA and has set a target of constructing 100 to 125 schools by the end of this year.
According to sources, government has identified hundreds of schools having no or less roll of students functioning in Kashmir division in districts like Budgam, Ganderbal, Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam, Kupwara and Baramulla. Sources said that government schools with dilapidated condition and negligible roll of students are functioning in many areas of Srinagar, particularly in downtown city. In Jammu division, there are schools having zero students in Kathua, Samba, Rajouri and districts of the Chenab valley. Similarly schools with no student roll are also functioning in Ladakh division. However, Kashmir and Jammu divisions have more schools with no or less student ration than Ladakh division. According to official data, J&K has a total of 24,265 government schools with total enrolment of 16.88 lakh students, and there are 1.43 lakh schools functioning. The government annually allocates Rs 6,000 crore to school education system. However, the performance of government schools is miserable when compared with private schools.
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