It seems that those running the affairs of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are quite optimistic as they say all the good things about various sectors of public importance like education, healthcare, etc. It is always good to be positive in attitude but self-praise and self-righteousness should have certain limits as it becomes ludicrous if one pats his or her own back despite knowing that the number of lacunae and shortcomings are hampering things.
In case of government schools in Jammu and Kashmir, which the administration always boasts of having all the facilities to impart quality education and carve out bright future of the young souls entering these temples of education, a disheartening fact has come to fore that only 22 percent of these educational institutions have functional Internet facility telling about the big difference between what is claimed and what the actual position is on ground.
The Union Minister for Education has disclosed the information inside the Rajya Sabha that J&K has miserably failed to equip the educational institutions with the functional internet connections despite the repeated advisory and guidelines issued by the concerned Union Ministry.
It is pertinent to mention that as per official data, only 5.2 percent government schools were equipped with internet facilities in 2019-20 while the number increased to 5.3 percent in 2020-21 and to 22.3 percent in 2021-2022 academic session. This dismal figure is despite the advisories issued time and again by the Department of School Education and Literacy, Government of India to all the states and UTs to enter into an MoU with BSNL and provide FTTH internet connection to all the government schools which have computing devices.
The information coming out is testimony to the fact that those helming the schools in J&K are not only indifferent towards their bounded duty but also callous towards their responsibility to steer J&K out of over three decades long morass as their lackadaisical approach has been dented the interests of the entire Union Territory because in today's digital world imparting education without internet is simply deception and nothing else.
In this case, the LG-led-administration should take the call and set the accountability while finding the reasons behind such callousness which had deprived the future nation builders from the due right to get state of the art facilities in their schools to become the meaningful citizens.
With such a startling revelation, those boasting about a vibrant education sector surely have received moments of embarrassment but still there is a time that J&K comes out of uncertainty although miles have to be covered to compete with the UT's counterparts as sluggishness among certain officials has taken the toll.
