By Owais Qazi:
Education in Kashmir has been under strain for the last five months. Hundreds of students have been wounded and hundreds have been arrested by security forces. Over 40 students have been slapped with the draconian Public Safety Act. Some students have recovered from their wounds and some have not. And when the regime forces them to sit in examination centres, students don’t have any other alternative than to object to this sour resolution. Now, students are protesting against this decision of the government. However, security forces are foiling these protests and more students are getting injured in this delicate matter.
What kind of a future is this government preparing for the students of Kashmir? This situation is making them suffer from depression and anxiety. Even the Hurriyat Chairman has condemned the decision of forcing students to sit in exam centres, saying, “How can a student wholeheartedly attend his exams when his close relatives, father, brother, cousin, friends, neighbours and classmates are the worst sufferers of state-terrorism and are either in the graveyard, or admitted in hospitals, or slapped with PSAs or tortured in police stations and interrogation centres?”
The administration should monitor the situation from the point of view of students. People are internally frazzled and students need time to cope because they’ve been away from schools and colleges since the past 5 months. Over 20 school infrastructures had been set ablaze tin different regions over the last 4 months. Such events have created a war-zone atmosphere, and disturbed many sections of society.
Exams should be scheduled as per demand of students because they’re the real architects of the education system. Stressing them to sit in exams without their acceptance is not a good deed to carry forward.