Why is DPS open in winter break?
Is the Jammu and Kashmir government patronizing the Delhi Public School in the state? If a top organization of the private-run schools here is to believed the government’s decision to shut schools for winter early has been purely motivated by the intentions to ‘help’ the DPS.
The Private Schools United Front (PSUF) accuses the government of patronizing Delhi Public School (DPS) at the cost of thousands of private and government schools in Kashmir.
The front says after the ‘forced closure’ of schools in the name of winter vacations in this ‘fair weather’, the government intentions have become clear. “There was no need of closure of schools early this winter. But they still did it just to benefit a particular so called elite school,” says Prof A G Masood, General Secretary of the PSUF.
“At a time when every school is closed, we want to ask the government how is DPS working.”
The front says that the department of education seems to be patronizing the said school. “The government has now made discrimination as its official policy. On one hand are thousands of schools and lakhs of ordinary children and on the other hand is a single school with few thousand rich kids,” said Masood.
“With their orders the government has divided children of Kashmir into two groups. It is a start of new kind of feudal system.”
The front says that no school in Kashmir can work without the approval of state government and thus everybody has to follow their rules. Officials claim that DPS follows CBSE, and that is the reason why it is open. “But it is the affiliation and recognition of department of education that makes them functional. So they have to follow the law of the land but unfortunately they are given a royal treatment,” Masood points.
Not only is the DPS conducting exams but is also ‘forcing students to attend their flood-hit classrooms’. DPS has put date-sheets on their website as ‘if they dont care’. A film made by the students of the DPS, available on the school website, points the campus remained submerged under ’15-feet’ water for days in September and ‘damaged its infrastructure’.
The front says it held a meeting wherein government was asked to come clear on this discrimination. “In case they don’t do anything, then we too will open our schools, conduct exams and promote students to new classes,” says G N Var, president PSUF. “The government has left us no choice but to fight for our rights.”
The front said that government needs to constitute a high level inquiry committee into the destruction of one years session of lakhs of Kashmiri students. “At the end of the year we feel that there was a well versed plan to destroy developing education sector of Kashmir,” said Var. “Government should initiate an inquiry and determine who ordered the infamous flip flop winter vacation announcement, scuttling of mass promotion, denial of scholarship to students, schools etc.”
