All government and recognised private schools in the Kashmir division are set to reopen on Friday and resume routine class work and other activities.The schools will reopen after a three-month gap in winter vacation announced by the government in December last year. All schools up to class 5th were closed from December 10, 2024, while the classes from 6th to 12th standard were closed for winter vacations from December 16, 2024.The schools were scheduled to reopen on March 1, 2025, however, the resumption of class work in schools was delayed by a few days in view of the weather forecast of heavy rains and snowfall.The class work will resume in all schools from March 7.While schools will reopen to officially begin class work for students, the shortage of Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (BOSE)-prescribed textbooks and infrastructural gaps in schools will throw up challenges for the government.An official said that educational institutions are yet to receive textbooks from the BOSE.He said that schools were yet to receive textbooks despite the schedule for distribution of textbooks notified by BOSE last month.
The official said that zonal officers had received only 40 to 45 percent of textbooks from BOSE for the current academic session.“Last time when BOSE notified the schedule for lifting of textbooks from the Bemina office, the ZEOs arranged vehicles to carry the books but the BOSE provided one or two books for each class. Most of the textbooks are pending,” the official said.Amid textbook shortage, the department is banking on old used textbooks of previous years which have been retrieved from students passing those classes and distributed among new students of those classes.
Besides the shortage of textbooks, the infrastructural gaps in schools will also throw up a challenge for the government as most schools, particularly up to the primary and upper primary levels, are facing an acute shortage of classrooms to accommodate the students.In most primary schools, students of more than one class are crammed in a single room while the situation in upper primary schools is no different.To accommodate students of five classes, primary schools are operating from three rooms including an office room.
In several areas, most schools are facing a dearth of infrastructure while in some schools students are deprived of basic facilities like toilets.In many areas, schools are still operating from rented accommodations as schools have been set up under the erstwhile Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme at such a location where the department is yet to identify land for the construction of school buildings.Minister for Education Sakina Itoo told Greater Kashmir that efforts were needed to fill the infrastructural gaps in schools.“Our schools have been functioning in rented buildings for the last 10 to 12 years,” she said.However, the minister said that besides resolving the issue of rented buildings, the department has other buildings on which the construction has been left midway at different levels or was yet to be taken up.She said that the work on these buildings including additional classrooms would be taken up on priority.“The department will ensure that all girls’ schools have proper toilet facilities and boundary walls,” she said.
