Winter break for educational institutions in J&K may be helpful, but is it really necessary?

Arka Chakraborty and Suhail Ahmad

Technically, winter in the Valley begins with a harsh 40-day-long (approximately) ‘Chilai Kalan’ (beginning around 21^st December), followed by a relatively moderate 20-day-long (approximately) ‘Chilai Khurd’ which leads to an even more modestly cold 10-day-long (approximately) ‘Chilai Bacha.’ No doubt that the winter adds to the beauty of Kashmir, but it also brings with it a whole host of problems. The closure of mainstream educational institutions (government and privately-owned schools, colleges and universities), a step taken in view of the harsh winter weather is one of the significant problems. The resultant annual two-and-a-half month-long winter break has proven to be severely detrimental to the UT’s education system and the future of students. A number of measures are taken every year both by the government and private institutions to compensate for the academic loss faced by the students in winter months, but these measures have their own shortcomings.

A brief overview of the winter education scenario in J&K

1. The closure of mainstream educational institutions:

Every year, the government and privately-owned schools are closed around the last week of December, beginning of a winter break that lasts till February, due to the cold winter weather. The winter break for higher educational institutions i.e. colleges and universities are announced separately (mostly in the month of January). This turns out to be a forced break for many students who remain disconnected from the academic world for months, only to return to a school (or college/university) that hurriedly tries to finish the syllabus within the limited time available. This inhibits the students’ understanding of the concepts and the impact gets inevitably reflected in their results.

The chairman of the Private Schools Association G. N. Var says that the educational institutions could be able to stay open with simple infrastructural improvements i.e. fixing the broken window panes and doors and making adequate heating arrangements. Unfortunately, the immediately cheaper option of declaring months-long break is more readily adopted in favour of making a slight investment in the education system’s qualitative elevation. A senior officer reportedly admitted that the government’s efforts at curtailing the winter break were met with stiff resistance from a section of the bureaucrats who shift with their families to the UT’s winter capital, Jammu. “We have a lazy system, and there are people who want to take advantage of it, forgetting the future of lakhs of students,” the official added.

2. Private Coaching Institutes:

Following the closure of mainstream educational institutions, the privately-owned coaching centers emerge to address the demand for regular and high-quality education. As of February 2020, the Kashmir valley has 346 registered coaching institutes (according to the numbers provided by the Department of School Education) and an estimated 200 unregistered institutes. According to G. N. Var, institutions like the Kashmir Institute for Excellence (KIE), Hope Classes, Mission E and Wave make a claim of providing better infrastructure then government and private schools, including heating arrangements that allow for classes to continue throughout the winter. However, in most cases, this is where the advantages end and the rest of the grand promises made by such institutes mostly turn out to be fallacious. This range of broken promises creates a number of problems for students who opt for such institutes. While promising quality coaching for national level examinations like NEET and JEE, the major coaching institutes allow an unmanageable number of students into their classrooms. An average classroom at a private coaching institute consists of 400 students which is a brazen violation of Section 5(a) of government order No. 435-Edu-of 2010, which calls for at least nine square feet of minimum covered area/space per candidate. The promise of ‘doubt clearing sessions’ is mostly a sham as the long and unhealthy schedule followed in most institutes don’t allow teachers to properly teach a class, let alone solve the doubts of a huge number of students.

In spite of all the mismanagement, most coaching institutes charge students between Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 45,000 per annum, an exorbitant amount for the region’s middle class, let alone the marginalized masses. This increases the class-based discrimination already existing in the Valley’s education system, deprives its poor a shot at a better future and stifles the overall socio-economic mobility of the region. Even though a circular issued by the Department of School Education, Kashmir, called for the reservation of ten per cent of the coaching institutes’ seats for Below Poverty Line (BPL), orphan, destitute and physically challenged students, most institutes charge them at least Rs. 5000 for ‘administrative expenses,’ even turning away most people belonging to these categories. When questioned about the dubious quality of education provided in these centers, one administrator said that the annual price (Rs. 30000-45000) was not enough to keep a good student-teacher ratio and provide impressive infrastructure simultaneously. The only institute that manages to keep the ratio healthy, the Rajbagh branch of Aakash institute, charges every student more than Rs. 1,00,000 per annum.

The private coaching industry, therefore, serves a minuscule privileged section of the population and that too poorly. They are, at best, a poorly managed and problematic alternative to schools, colleges and universities.

3. The experiment with ‘Winter Tuitions’:

In view of the problems faced by students resulting from the months-long winter break, the erstwhile PDP government had announced in 2015 the beginning of ‘winter tuitions,’ a program where both teachers and students would be given the chance to volunteer to participate and continue the teaching-learning process in ‘study centers’ established for this purpose throughout the winter. Enrolment was free for students except for a nominal ‘heating charges’ imposed to maintain the extra heating arrangements. The teachers who volunteered for the initiative were offered tangible incentives, including leave salary. As the teachers who qualified to volunteer were mostly government teachers, the quality of education offered in these study centers often turned out to be better than the relatively far more expensive private coaching centers. Moreover, this allowed the relatively socio-economically marginalized students a fairer shot at achieving success in competitive examinations. The step was welcomed by the region’s student community, a fact proven by the government’s opening of more study centers in response to the increasing pressure of enrolling students. However, this idea, while commendable, suffered from serious problems of its own. Firstly, during the program, there were never enough study centers and there were always students who would be left out of the process. Secondly, most of the time government and private schools would be converted into study centers for the winter. This meant that most of the study centers would suffer from the abysmal infrastructure that the schools were known for. Broken window panes and missing doors along with insufficient heating arrangements resulted in the same freezing cold conditions in these centers due to which the government would declare the holidays in the first place. Thirdly, the initiative was a large-scale one (although insufficient in the end) and required a long planning process, keeping in mind the finer details of execution. However, in reality, the initiative was hastily undertaken resulting in several inconsistencies. Fourthly, the teaching duties were supposed to be voluntary, but in many cases as the number of students increased, school authorities had to order their teachers to join. Fifthly, no clear guidelines were provided regarding the process of teaching and the content of the same in the winter tuitions, resulting in schools facing the dilemma of starting the same syllabus from scratch after the winter break risking the anger and frustration of students who took the pain to travel long distances to join the winter tuitions in freezing weather and continuing where they left off at the end of the winter tuitions, thereby leaving those who did not attend the same in utter confusion. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the teachers who ‘volunteered’ for the program were promised tangible benefits including a leave salary, but in many cases it was found that the lower-rung officers refused to enter the same in their service books, leaving many teachers disheartened and altogether disinterested in the program.

Even though the initiative was fraught with problems, it seems that it had given palpable benefits to the Valley’s students, especially for the meritorious yet marginalized. According to PDP leader Naeem Akhtar, the initiative had resulted in a boost in the selection of the region’s students at national-level competitive examinations: the number rising from 23 in the year 2015-16 to 239 in 2017-18. However, the efforts of the government were cut short when the program was discontinued in 2018.

It is quite clear that the prolonged ‘winter break’ that the government in J&K is forced to declare every year has a crippling effect on the Valley’s education system. The private coaching industry that desperate parents often turn to lack the degree of accountability that mainstream institutions demonstrate, hence draining families of their hard-earned money only to disappoint most students and further paralyze the mainstream institutes in return. The government-initiated ‘winter tuitions’, albeit a welcome alternative to the outrageous private coaching centers, was clearly a grand plan with poor execution, causing inconvenience for both students and teachers.

Recommendations

Considering the previous experiences i.e. the flocking of thousands of students to the Valley’s expensive, numerous private coaching centers and the overcrowding of the government-led winter tuition study centers, it becomes clear that the student population in J&K do not want to waste almost three months of their precious time idling at home. Keeping mainstream educational institutions open during the winter, therefore, seems to be a viable option for the government to curb the menace of private coaching centers as well as remove the plethora of logistical problems arising from the winter tuition initiative. However, this has to be done carefully and in a planned manner.

A few measures that the government can employ in this regard are suggested below:

1.   The principal reason the government has to close the doors of government and most private schools during the winter is the extreme cold that prevails in the Valley and the winter zone of Jammu. This could be avoided by taking simple measures. For instance, fixing of broken windows or doors and installing proper heating arrangements). A thorough infrastructural improvement is needed to make mainstream educational institutions functional in winter.
2. The government should charge some extra fees during the winter months in order to make the infrastructural improvements.
3. Unlike the ‘winter tuitions,’ attendance in the winter session in schools should be mandatory for both teachers and students. However, tangible incentives should be offered to both parties in order to make the effort successful. For example, the salaries of teachers should be increased during the winter months. Sports and personality development activities should be organized to keep the students interested.
4. As suggested by G. N. Var, the information gathered from the meteorological department should be used to predict snowfalls and extremely cold weather and holidays should be selectively declared during these days alone.
5. The emergency measures taken during the present COVID-19 pandemic situation has resulted in ‘online classes’ emerging as a viable alternative to classes where the students and teachers have to be physically present for classes to commence. During long periods of extremely cold temperatures, the schools can arrange online classes to continue the teaching-learning process.

Conclusion

On December 11, 2020, the government of J&K UT announced ‘winter break’ from December 21, 2020 to February 28, 2021. However, this time, the government ordered the continuation of online classes, first making them mandatory but later re-christening them to be “voluntary in nature for both Teachers and students.”

The situation the ‘winter break’ create for the already problem-stricken education system of J&K is dire, to say the least. The months-long break remains a testament to the range of infrastructural lacunae (among others) the Valley’s government and privately-owned mainstream educational institutions suffer from. Private coaching centers take advantage of this situation and create an expensive education alternative, and the students are left with no other option but to opt for it. Keeping the doors of the mainstream educational institutions open throughout the winter seems to be the only option that can pull the Valley’s education system out of its present mess, but in order for that to happen, the various infrastructural challenges have to be addressed head-on.

References

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6. Anonymous. “After announcing winter vacations, J&K Govt says online classes not mandatory.” The Kashmir Monitor. https://www.thekashmirmonitor.net/after-announcing-winter-vacations-jk-govt-says-online-classes-not-mandatory/ (accessed: January 1, 2021).
7. Amin Malik, Irfan. “Kashmir’s Coaching Institute Syndrome.” The Kashmir Walla. February 27, 2020. https://thekashmirwalla.com/2020/02/kashmirs-coaching-institute-syndrome/ (accessed: January 1, 2021).
8. Hurra, Mushtaq. “Where Are The Winter Tutorials of Last Year?” Kashmir Images. December 31, 2018. https://thekashmirimages.com/2018/12/31/where-are-the-winter-tutorials-of-last-year/ (accessed: January 1, 2021).