KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
That the schools he masters as State’s Education Minister have not generally performed well this result season also might have been on the mind of Naeem Akhter when he visited Tral this Thursday. On his way to congratulate the two little girls that wrested the two top slots from a 32678 crowd, he forgot to take sweets with him! Eventually the families, living as neighbours, showered him with sweets.
But that is beside the point. The real major departure is PDP’s erstwhile spokesperson has become this regime’s first minister to get into Tral, a territory that security grid forbids from VVIP visits, obviously for security reasons. This was his second visit in almost a week.
Akhtar spent brief time with the families. It was symbolic that he wants to encourage talent. Both the girls, as it was revealed, were aimed to be first doctors and then jump into IAS bandwagon. He wanted them to be little focused. Be either of the two and start preparing right away.
But the visit was very eventful, as it was early last week. As students of a government run school heard their minister was in Dadsara, three of them trekked to him in a delegation. They had a demand that a library should be set up in their school. The demand was acceded to, forthwith.
But officials said the response minister got during his two visits essentially is indicative of the fact that people have a plethora of problems to be confronted with. “There are smaller issues that essentially do not need much of money but a decision,” one official said. “Even in certain areas the students were so motivated just by a pat.”
In Lurhama, for instance, where the local Higher Secondary has 450 students on its rolls, they were facing a petty crisis: the premises were not walled and the cows would come visiting them every class work. JKPCC has already been given a contract but it did not move. Just a phone call, officials said, is expected to do the needful.
In this village, the minister enforced a sort of amalgamation by authorizing the local Higher Secondary School’s popular principal to head the two primary schools as well. “It will improve the output,” officials said and locals have appreciated the on-spot decision making. He also agreed to give them funds for raising a science block.
During his last visit, the minister had provided funds for creating space for commerce studies in Tral Higher Secondary. There, he announced, to pay for the excursion of the ninth standard schools to visit Kishtwar as the minister believes it will help them explore things they have been reading in books, only.
In Noorpora later, he announced funding another outing for students to the village where Poet of Kashmir – Mehjoor was born.
“These field visits do not add to the system of accountability only,” an official accompanying Akhtar said. “It motives the staff and re-energizes the movement for education and in certain cases helps identify the talent, as well.”
In Chursoo, for instance, a calm student who seemingly sounded a back-bencher shocked the minister’s entourage by lecturing on fiction. Incidentally, he is an orphan.
Akhtar’s forays and statesmanship is normal. For a minster who knows the value of education, must be pained to see what this sector has undergone over the years. That is perhaps why he has himself emerged as the walking whitepaper on education.
Why Akhtar’s actions make news is simple. He has inherited the legacy of Peerzada M Sayeed, Tara Chand, Abdul Gani Malik and M Akbar Lone, at a time when he should have been writing a Kashmiri version of Kutaliya’s Arthashastra, rather than holding a chalk and a black-board. But destiny, as they say, is pre-decided.
