WE THE PEOPLE
Coaching Centers in Residential areas vitiating atmosphere, Promoting vices, Turning lives of Residents miserable
Hence People seek Div Com’s intervention, demand their Surveillance to maintain discipline
By: Mirror News Service
Srinagar: The privatization of education has been taking place at the school level without much resistance. But it has not made many dents into other levels. However privatization, though necessary has some drawbacks. Private education trusts often become merely profit making business ventures with no social ideals or objectives. If privatization of education comes into conflict with the equity objective, the State intervention would be desirable. It is necessary that State intervention be increased in Private Sector Institutions to increase the quote of seats to the poor and deprived sections and help in promoting human resources development to keep pace with the emerging requirements.
But here in Kashmir valley, the education scenario has undergone a sea-change. This becomes visible from the hoardings and advertisements of Coaching Institutes and Study Centers which are offering nothing but fake promises. There are different types of coaching centers which are working like organized con business.
It is an established fact that the list of Institutes with fake promises is topped by coaching institutes which are teaching more than 100 students in one sitting. Yet, these institutes claim that the quality coaching provided by them can help the students in getting success in top Engineering and Medical Entrance Examinations. It has become common practice with these institutes to make fake claims about the number of successful candidates in different competitive exams.
If this was not enough, these coaching centers have also turned out to be bastions for immoral activities; wherein future of our younger souls is getting darker. After visiting different coaching centers and through information from reliable sources; “Mirror of Kashmir,” has learnt about immoral activities are allegedly going on in these Coaching Centers. It is worth mentioning here that Drug addiction, eve teasing and hooliganism are some of the high-flying depraved activities happening in the coaching centers of the valley on daily basis. The menace of coaching centers is much grave in the areas like Hyderpora, Rambagh, Bagat and Barzulla, as these Coaching Centers have grown immeasurably without any “Check and Balance” in these areas.
Ghulam Rasool,a shopkeeper of Bagat area said, “The coaching centers of the area have turned out to be the breeding grounds for immoral activities. Drug addiction, eve-teasing and hooligans are growing on account of these coaching centers. The co-education in these Coaching Centers has vitiated the atmosphere. If these Coaching Centers are proscribed, the students will be able to manage their time better. Gone are the days when taking private tuitions was a sign of the student's incompetence”.
Iqbal Najjar, a resident of Barzulla has the same views to echo-“My maternal uncle is running a Coaching Center in the area, but let me make it clear that these Coaching Centers have ruined the life of inhabitants of the area. You won’t find any immoral activity that is not taking place on account of these Coaching Centers. Nowadays it seems to be a matter of prestige, rather than necessity to join one. Parents feel it is part of their parental duty to send their wards for private tuitions, right from Class I to Class XII, whether there is actual need of it or not. Obviously, the child will be stressed due to paucity of time, having to manage ‘two study shifts and the end result would be the occurrence of immoral activities in these centers”.
Bashir Ahmad,a commoner of Hyderpora said, “The Coaching Centers of the Valley are promoting a lot of vulgarity. In fact, in the entire valley, there has been a mushroom growth of coaching centers where teachers from various Colleges and Higher Secondary Schools take tuitions. It is shameful to note that a noble profession like ‘Education’ in the valley has become a blooming commerce as hundreds of tuition centers have been opened across the valley and teachers are mostly from government Higher Secondary Schools. The government has also failed to take steps to regulate these Centers and frame Rules for them as most of these Centers are playing with the future of students”.
There are other grim veracities related to Coaching Centers of Kashmir. As most of these Coaching Centers have a class of 80 to 120 students huddled together in a single sitting so congestion and chaos has become a hallmark of these Coaching Centers. It is thus rightly argued by the experts and sane voices that “free flow” of knowledge cannot occur in such a chaotic atmosphere.
It has also been observed that even though during the winter season, people prefer to sit indoors, hundreds of students who recently passed different examinations can be seen loitering in open to take tuitions. Even at various Coaching Centers across the Kashmir valley, the classes start at 5:30.
“I wonder what a student can learn when he has to wake up at 5 am in the morning to reach to his/her Coaching Center. The scenario related to our overall academic growth is quite abysmal” says, Abdul Majid, a commoner.
Ground realities suggest that the Coaching Centers in Kashmir are currently presenting a bleak picture and are promoting lot of vices which are directly as well as indirectly tarnishing the moral fabric of our society.(To be continued)
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