Sorry State of Education: Better study under sunlight than classroom: courtesy absence of heating arrangements in Govt schools
Riyaz Bhat
Srinagar, Nov 02 (KNO): In absence of heating arrangements in government-run-schools, most of the teachers take students outside the classroom to teach them under sunlight.
The news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) spoke to several teachers of government schools who opine that the authorities shall provide heating arrangements from the first week of November only for the elementary level (Primary and Upper Primary) students.
At the same time some teachers said that teaching students inside the cold temperature rooms may pose potential risks in terms of physical health due to exposure to cold temperature.
One of the government teachers said, “From past over a week, many students of primary level have been complaining of cold temperatures in classrooms and in order to overcome it, I along with some of my colleagues decided to take students out of the classrooms to teach in open space under the sunlight.”
He said that the government usually starts providing heating facilities after November-15. “I think the government must amend the schedule especially for the lower class students.”
They must be given heating facilities from the first week of November so that it won’t pose any potential risks of physical health due to exposure to cold temperatures.”
In the meantime another teacher said, “Studying continuously in the cold temperature can make it difficult for students’ bodies to adjust appropriately. That may lead not only to one-off illnesses but other issues as well—depending upon how often they find themselves having lessons in the cold temperature without proper protection.”
Almost most of the teachers said that the students won’t be able to concentrate or focus on lectures if they continue to study in cold surroundings.
Principal Secretary, School Education Department, Alok Kumar told KNO that the department was aware of the matter and was looking into it. “We will take a call soon on this issue.”
On asking whether there was a possibility of providing heating arrangements for primary level students, Kumar said, “We have a huge number of schools and we don’t have that much of facilities available to provide prior winter vacations.”
He said, “We will see how we can manage to overcome the issue. If there will be extreme or more cold conditions, we will think of closing some schools for winter vacations.”
“For now we have changed the school timing keeping in view the cold like situations,” Kumar said—(KNO)
