After more than a month of shutdown, it is more than heartening to see small kids with school bags latched on their shoulders walking down the streets and roads of Kashmir, even as shops and other business establishments remain closed, public transport is suspended and students continue to stay away from educational institutions. Sociologically speaking, students have been the worst victims of the prevailing situation in Kashmir, though not for the first time. Not only have they lost their precious time and that too at the end of an academic calendar amid the ongoing shutdown, the absence of communication networks like mobile phone and internet connectivity has cut off all the resources that they could have utilized to keep up with their time tables. That they have been restricted to their homes and cut off from the outer world at this crucial and defining moment of their lives will have an impact on their psyche in the longer run is a given. What is extremely disappointing is that the state administration and the owners of the private schools have not been assertive enough to shield our future from the heat of the ongoing tensions. While there is no doubt that the situation is volatile and even the government has been candid enough to admit that a majority of the students are not attending classes, some schools across the nook and corner of Kashmir have started private academies for their students. This trend needs to be replicated at a larger level. With the state administration also announcing that the board exams are going to be held on time, the academic activity has started picking up as students rush to fill the exam forms. Same is the case with the colleges and universities of Kashmir. Students have little time on their hands. Already they have lost nearly six weeks of their precious time during which they would have collected notes, exchanged ideas and started preparing for their exams. But the prevailing situation has arrested their intellectual development. As a society, it is incumbent upon all of us to join hands and prevent this social and intellectual degradation of our future generations. Students can’t be held hostage to the uncertainties of our times. In the very least, such an attitude is a reflection of a society’s intellectual bankruptcy. All over the world, whether it is war or peace, students has been spared the horrors of politics. We can’t allow the education of our future generation to become victims of the political turmoil.
After more than a month of shutdown, it is more than heartening to see small kids with school bags latched on their shoulders walking down the streets and roads of Kashmir, even as shops and other business establishments remain closed, public transport is suspended and students continue to stay away from educational institutions. Sociologically speaking, students have been the worst victims of the prevailing situation in Kashmir, though not for the first time. Not only have they lost their precious time and that too at the end of an academic calendar amid the ongoing shutdown, the absence of communication networks like mobile phone and internet connectivity has cut off all the resources that they could have utilized to keep up with their time tables. That they have been restricted to their homes and cut off from the outer world at this crucial and defining moment of their lives will have an impact on their psyche in the longer run is a given. What is extremely disappointing is that the state administration and the owners of the private schools have not been assertive enough to shield our future from the heat of the ongoing tensions. While there is no doubt that the situation is volatile and even the government has been candid enough to admit that a majority of the students are not attending classes, some schools across the nook and corner of Kashmir have started private academies for their students. This trend needs to be replicated at a larger level. With the state administration also announcing that the board exams are going to be held on time, the academic activity has started picking up as students rush to fill the exam forms. Same is the case with the colleges and universities of Kashmir. Students have little time on their hands. Already they have lost nearly six weeks of their precious time during which they would have collected notes, exchanged ideas and started preparing for their exams. But the prevailing situation has arrested their intellectual development. As a society, it is incumbent upon all of us to join hands and prevent this social and intellectual degradation of our future generations. Students can’t be held hostage to the uncertainties of our times. In the very least, such an attitude is a reflection of a society’s intellectual bankruptcy. All over the world, whether it is war or peace, students has been spared the horrors of politics. We can’t allow the education of our future generation to become victims of the political turmoil.
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