Need to overhaul education sector in J&K: Nayeem Akhter

Stressing upon initiating new means of education that will attract students and teachers,  Minister for Education, Nayeem Akhter Thursday said the education sector in the state need a compete “overhaul.

Speaking at the inaugural function of the 3-day workshop on “Quality Education in J&K – Challenges and Ways Forward”, Akhter said: “We have to work on the curriculum in such a way that it prepares students to face the world, become a better human and in the process also fulfill the needs of modern world. In order to do this, we will have to redesign our courses and books.” He said that Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was created to serve the purpose of accessibility of education to students, it has become equal to a scheme like MNEREGA.

“There is hardly any difference between MNEREGA or SSA in many areas… because the purpose is to educate the child but SSA the opposite is happening. The emphasis is to create employment. It is employment and infrastructure centric. The result has been a kind of a mess. I will not get in how it happened but there is a challenge.”

Akhter questioned the output of the current curriculum in schools, saying that the present scenario only tries to stress the mind of students while kill the creative mind in them. “Channing the system is a big challenge for government.”

Sharing the experience of his father who was a school teacher in Bandipore district, the minister said it is important for a teacher to be innovative. “I have the privilege of being a son of a school teacher. Around our village there were many Gujjars and they were not give the status of any tribe or caste then. My father would see that Gujjars liked music a lot …so much so that whenever they would do any hard labour, they would play drums. It triggered a thought in him to create a band in school,” he shared while explaining the methods and tricks a teacher could use in fostering better learning of the student.

“My father purchased a band on EMI and to repay the money, he prepared students to play it at the local weddings. If you do a survey of that area, it has produced chief engineers, two chief medical officers and whole host of teaching community.”

Expressing the need to make the profession of teaching more vibrant and respectful than a mere employment entity,” Akhtar said that the teachers who practice a noble profession had been treated as “servants” by the state governments previously . “A teacher has become someone who has done a favour by the state in the form of job and then treated as a servant. My first focus has been to retrieve teachers from that position and accord them with dignity, respect and freedom to function.”

Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Education and Information, Priya Sethi said that State has faced tremendous challenges in every field of life during the past and the education sector was most affected during the period. She said the present government has flagged this sector on priority and focused attention is being paid to provide quality education to the students.

Sethi urged upon the teaching community to imbibe quality education with moral values among the students right from childhood. She said the teacher fraternity has to play yeoman’s role in this regard. She hoped that the workshop will go a long way in improving the educational standards in schools.

Noted educationist, Anita Rampal, enlightened the gathering with her ideas and experiences tracing the areas of education which need a “complete overhaul”.  She said teaching is an art through skills and training which should motivate a child to come to school and learn but somehow the opposite has been happening from many years.

“”Just knowing a subject or being a graduate is not sufficient qualification to become a school teacher. You need to be trained in understanding the learning process of children, their diversity, and you need to develop necessary teaching skills under trained supervision,” said Rampal who is also professor, Delhi University.

She said the only way to revamp revamp the education system is through negotiation with people and policy makers where no one tracked ideas could be forced. “Where did the understanding like quality education is in private schools and not government schools? What we think academically?” Rampal said these questions would vary and need to be asked to get good results.

She said the challenge is that children should think for themselves rather than just absorb what is given to them.  She criticized the state over the dismal state of schools. “Kashmir is blessed with beauty but schools in dismal condition…they are not at all appealing. We need a major overhaul and state has taken some steps but not consolidated them.”

She also underlined the need for bringing a change in the perception of teachers to motivate all students, including average and lower average students towards achieving excellence in their education. She said the real problem of children is not being dropout but being pushed out. “It is the system which pushes them out. Education can only be fruitful when the combined responsibility is bore by the parents and the community members,” she said.

According to Rampal, Kendriya Vidyalayas are best in targeting inequality and discrimination among the various social and cultural categories of children.

Akhter said although there is the best talent – both among teachers and students – available in the government-run schools, only thing lacking is an enabling environment and requisite motivation.

He said the challenge lies in creating and sustaining teacher motivation and inquisitiveness among students. “At the same time the curriculum has to be revisited to imbibe local needs and job-intensive skills so that we produce entrepreneurs and not school pass-outs who hanker after daily-wage jobs,” he said and added that under the new initiative the Education Department would encourage community-based and school-based projects for work experience, associate local artisans in school activities, give primacy to cultural activities, art, sports, etc, ensure regular content based and motivational training for teachers, and look upon quality improvement as integral to holistic school improvement programme.

Akhter said the Department would also encourage teachers to frequently interact with pedagogy experts and other teacher educators to develop useful learning approaches for children. “The diversity of learning environments and learning approaches should be encouraged and teachers should have the freedom to experiment on a much larger scale with innovative ideas,” he said and added that effective interface of teachers and teacher educators is critical for developing a context specific intervention.

The workshop is being organised by the Directorate of School Education, Kashmir, in collaboration with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Jammu and Kashmir State Board of School Education (JKBOSE) at Banquet Hall.

Commissioner/Secretary Education Shaleen Kabra, Director School Education, Kashmir Showkat Ahmad Beigh, Director, School Education, Jammu Mrs. Yasha Mudgal, Chairman JKBOSE, Director SSA, DDCs Kupwara and Bandipora, academicians, intellectuals, educationists, scholars, researchers, Principals of various colleges, Chief Education Officers, representatives of various NGOs and a large number of teachers were present in the workshop. The proceedings of the inaugural session of the workshop were conducted by joint Director Education Kashmir, Syed Abid Hussain.