UPGRADING SCHOOLS
It is surprising that despite schools closed for the past 13 months, JK Government has decided to spend over Rs 350 crore for improvement of infrastructure and purchase of textbooks and uniforms for children in government schools across the Union Territory.
Government should have waited a little and should have conducted a lot of consultations with stakeholders including parents. Most of the students in the government run schools have not been able to get the virtual classroom benefit as they belong to poor families and do not have the costly mobiles in their homes.
Amid this digital divide in the society, JK administration should have revised the plans according to the needs of these poor students who have been struggling to get the education though the government has been trying to bridge the gap by conducting radio and television classrooms.
Apart from this difficulty, instead of purchasing uniforms for the children’s those funds should have been transferred to every school principal that should have in return identified the students who need cash through their accounts for the continuation of their education.
More innovative policies should have been devised by the authorities for the poor students as most of them are going to government run schools while the students going to private schools have a lot of options available for them.
