Re-opening of schools in Kashmir Valley

Schools in every nook and corner of Kashmir are opening. It has been a decades-old practice to announce winter vacation in December every year for a period of about three months and in the month of March next year, all educational institutions reopen for normal functioning. Colleges of the valley have started their academic activity from February 15 while schools up to higher secondary level are reopening from March 1^st.

This year the reopening of these institutions is analysed differently in view of the challenge of COVID infection. All these educational institutions in the Valley were closed last year after the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic and the announcement of lockdown. After the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A by Indian Parliament on 5 August 2019, schools across whole JK remained off for about six months. So this year in the month of March these schools are opening after an academic loss of about two years.

The administration of Kashmir has made strong preparations for the opening of schools. Keeping schools open to sanitize and clean the building and classrooms before the target date speaks volumes about the magnitude of preparation level of administration. Announcing SOPs to be followed during real classroom teaching is also one of the steps the administration has taken before these institutions are opened.

The government has played its role, and parents are also eagerly waiting to see their kids studying in schools after a very long time and they are cooperating both with the administration as well as the school authorities in this endeavour. But the most important thing is for the teachers to get themselves fully geared and prepared to compensate the huge academic loss of students. For this purpose both the school authorities and the teachers have to follow some fruitful procedures.

Most important thing is that teachers must keep in mind that they are dealing with those children whose parents cannot afford to send their wards to private schools. It is our prime duty to teach them with utmost dedication, honesty and to mitigate their each issue because we draw handsome salaries from state exchequer only for this job.

The buildings and the campuses of our schools are clean, sanitised and ready for the academic activity now because the administration has already ordered for their cleaning and sanitization. What we need to do now is to take the steps for better classroom activity so that fruitful results can be achieved.

On the very first day of school reopening, a balanced class timetable must be framed based on mutual consensus of the teaching faculty without wasting further the precious time of the students. A balanced timetable can be synthesized only when the interest and the specialisation of teachers is given a due weightage. After following this principle, we can expect better results.

Making students aware about the current scenario of COVID, advising them to follow SOPs and mitigating their grievances with regard to the pandemic is need of the hour.

Children of economically weaker sections must be identified from each class within a couple of days after school reopening so that financial aid can be provided to them from the school poor fund account. Notebooks, pens, pencils and other much-needed stationery items can be purchased from this aid so that in the whole academic year they won’t face any financial problem.

After the timetable has been set up, teachers need to study and analyze the contents of the books they have been assigned. If they feel any kind of difficulty or issue, thorough discussions with fellow teachers and getting comprehensive study materials from the school library or nearest market can prove a successful activity both for the teachers as well as the student community.

Break in between the two meetings of the daily activity shouldn’t be more than an hour in which both teachers and the students make themselves fresh and energised.

During morning assembly, precautionary measures with regard to check the covid-19 infection, maintaining SOPs and following administrative guidelines need to be the main parts of speeches. Apart from this, 10 to 15 minutes should be kept reserved each day for giving moral lessons. This will not only make the personality of students fully developed but the future of our next generation would also be bright. Humans, especially students, without morality are like beasts of the jungle. So in order to inculcate the real humanistic values among the students, we need to teach them moral lessons.

Different kinds of student, teacher and other information is sought almost on daily basis both by the zonal as well as district offices. In order to minimise the time loss and to do such correspondences with ease, it is better to adopt the online internet-based communications with the offices instead of sending each day one staff member to these offices with the required information, because in most of our schools there is dearth of class 4 officials.

Most important thing is that teachers must keep in mind that they are dealing with those children whose parents cannot afford to send their wards to private schools. It is our prime duty to teach them with utmost dedication, honesty and to mitigate their each issue because we draw handsome salaries from state exchequer only for this job.