January 21
The latest fashion in educational circles is to send specially pre-university students to Coaching Classes in the hope of bettering their prospects. A student would have otherwise got 90 per cent is assured of 95 per cent. With the result the coaching classes are mushrooming in the city in abundance. The students meritorious performance is attributed to the particular Coaching Institute and not the Teachers who sweat in Junior Colleges for a paltry salary.
The Jammu Kashmir Police in Islamabad (anantnag) district of South Kashmir has recently ordered the temporary closure of coaching centers in the township citing ‘law and order’ problems. A Top cop in Jammu Kashmir Police upon being contacted by The Kashmiriyat speaking on the ban said, “The administration has no control over the centers and most of the coaching centers in the district are functioning without registration.”
However various stakeholders have been demanding the closure of coaching centers like the one which operates near a residential area in Islamabad (Anantnag) township. “It gets tough for us to move out of our homes, these coaching center students often chase girls, pass vulgar comments and are also seen engaging in obscene acts,” a resident of old eid Gah area of Islamabad township said. She said that she went to complain to the coaching center authorities who replied it was not their job, “We are responsible only for what they do inside the coaching centre,” they had told her.
“They promise quality education, but we have just started our tuition and i am not sure if i will ever be able to focus in lack of proper infrastructure and they do not even provide heating facilities inside the coaching centre,we freeze in cold and it gets difficult to focus,” a class 11th student of a private tuition centre told The Kashmiriyat.
She said that the teachers are doing nothing other than asking them to note down what they read from the text books. “Memorize this,” they often tell us, she said.
It would be really a fruitful exercise by educationists if they find out as to what is actually happening within the four walls of a “Coaching Class”. There was a particular stage in primary school classes, which vanishes when a student steps in High School. To improve his memory, the teacher in the elementary class directs students either to repeat or write hundred times, then popularly known as ‘imposition’. It is a type of discipline imposed on a student more as a punishment rather than to educate a child.
The parents of many students complained in past years that they were charged money by the coaching centres, in violation of the norms. The parents had complained that the proprietors of the coaching institutes were demanding of Rs 4000 to Rs 5000 in their respective coaching centres from the students belonging to BPL category.
The student said that a medieval system is highly prevalent in the coaching classes. “This certainly is not the education, we expect. It may eventually kill the basic pursuit of intellect in young students, she added.
The parents have also accused the coaching centre owners of charging high dues from the students. “Many of the teachers who work in Government Schools force students to come to the coaching centers to complete the syllabus, hence forcing a parent to send their ward for coaching,” a parent told The Kashmiriyat.
The coaching centres, as per the government guidelines have to provide free admission reserved for BPL and other downtrodden students. Earlier, the coaching centres used to identify the students and enroll them in their respective institutions free of cost.
The Shoppers of Islamabad (Anantnag) district in general and of the township in particular have complained to the Police against the functioning of the coaching centers. “we have received complaints from shopkeepers asking us to ban the coaching centers,” the Police official said.
The Police has issued a verbal order for the closure of the tuition centers to shut till the 26th day of January against which tuition centre owners staged a protest demonstration in Srinagar, however the parents of many children complained post the protest that they should not use the “poverty” card, as they are looting the kith and kin of poor people with the amount of money they charge for tuition.
Another student of a private tuition centre told The Kashmiriyat complaining of the huge crowd inside a classroom said, “Students never get individual attention at coaching institutes because teachers have to deal with 40-60 students in each class and this makes it difficult for teachers to focus on each student and hence, students are not able to get proper guidance.”