In the majority of schools in Kashmir, there are no playgrounds where teachers can exercise. A teacher remains confined within four walls throughout the day. More than fifty percent of teachers can be seen with an enlarged stomach. Though the system cannot be tougher on us, it is our level of understanding that pushes us into the Pandora’s box. We have created this box ourselves. The policy of education never does so.
Muntashir Kifayat Hussain
In the nineteen years of my service as a teacher in district Budgam and as an academic monitor, I have experienced about thirty schools where I watched the system closely in all dimensions. The most forgotten and neglected aspect of a teacher’s life in Kashmir is physical and mental health. I do not find any school free from physical deformity, medical issues such as diabetes, or mental stress.
In the majority of schools in Kashmir, there are no playgrounds where teachers can exercise. A teacher remains confined within four walls throughout the day. In Kashmir, more than fifty per cent of teachers can be seen with an enlarged stomach. Teaching, sipping sugary tea, increased screen time with additional app-related assignments, mounting stress, and no means of recreation or exercise is the order of the day in our schools. Though the system cannot be tougher on us, it is our level of understanding that pushes us into Pandora’s box. We have created this Pandora’s box ourselves. The policy of education never does so.
The Education System Of The Past
The education system in Kashmir, when I was a student, evolved around a core objective of self-realisation and living in harmony with moral law. The traditional oral and interactive models of teaching produced morally upright and balanced personalities. Exposure visits to local places—walking about five kilometres on foot from school on weekends—helped keep both educators and students physically and psychologically fit. Steel tiffin boxes packed with low-calorie homemade food in the hands of educators and students, reflecting beams of sunlight all around with rhymes, filled the atmosphere with serenity and tranquillity.
Those beautiful lines of Allama Iqbal (RA) still resonate:
“My longing comes to my lips as a supplication of mine,
O Allah! May my life be like a candle.
May my homeland, through me, attain elegance,
As the garden through flowers attains elegance.
May my life be like that of the moth, O Lord!
May I love the lamp of knowledge, O Lord!
O Allah! Protect me from the evil ways,
Show me the path leading to the good ways.”
Local visits to monumental and historical places offer profound educational value, cultural enrichment, and a tangible connection to our ancestors, bringing textbook history to life and linking culture with education. Such visits provide immense visual pleasure and spark creativity.
Lessons From Home
Watching my father read a newspaper in the morning inculcated the habit of reading in me. “Oh my son! Come read these lines from this newspaper,” my father would often ask me during morning breakfast. Reading physical newspapers reduces digital time and helps develop spatial memory, making it easier to remember specific stories. That habit is still with me.
I watched my father carve and shape a bamboo pen—Qalam—for me, not letting me do it myself using a sharp knife. After breakfast, I used to wipe the wooden slate clean, prepare ink made of soil, and start writing on the wooden slate with the bamboo pen, calligraphy in full display. At such a tender age, this practice covers several developmental areas: the coordination of small muscles in movements (fine motor skills), the ability to use both sides of the body simultaneously (bilateral coordination), and the brain’s ability to carry out a sequence of unfamiliar physical actions (motor planning or praxia).
Though my handwriting did not improve much, it is an established fact that the majority of students from those days have impressive handwriting.
NEP 2020: A Bridge Between Past And Present
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 presents a beautiful strategy and policy by blending the core values of ancient education systems with modern education.
– Mother Tongue Instruction: NEP 2020 emphasises the use of the mother tongue for foundational instruction. In our school days, education was imparted in the language of understanding—the mother tongue.
– Tribal Knowledge Integration: NEP 2020 integrates tribal knowledge into mainstream curricula. This cultivates cultural pride and keeps regional art, folklore, and values alive. We can create a cultural corner in schools where cultural items rooted in our blood can be displayed.
– Exhibitions and Art Melas: NEP 2020 emphasises organising exhibitions and “Art Melas” where students explain the beauty of art to peers and parents. These exhibitions remove boredom and restore agility if managed sincerely.
– Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE): The foundational five years (ages 3 to 8) focus on play-based and activity-based learning under the concept of ECCE.
NEP 2020 is for the benefit of all. It needs to be implemented at pace. Sooner, the better.
The writer is a teacher at Boys High School, Narbal
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