From coaching factory conveyor belts to stifled curiosity—why Kashmiri students deserve more than a rigid two-option future
The Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (JKBOSE) declaring results of 10th board examinations might come across as a big relief for the students awaiting them, but like many other good times, it is only temporary. The students must now face a dilemma of deciding whether to go for the JEE exam or the NEET exam— possibly the only two choices that an average Kashmiri parent discerns as honourable.
What should have been a pursuit for those inclined toward medicine and engineering has now become a mere collective obsession. This societal compulsion is so deep-rooted that every other field — arts, humanities, social sciences, entrepreneurship, creative writing, design, even basic curiosity —is almost considered a failure or euphemistically “the other option.” This is measuring worth by rank, and the evidence is the glorification of the recently declared results. This is not guidance. This is intellectual suffocation disguised as ambition. Every billboard, every result celebration, every counselling session subtly (and not so subtly) pushes the idea that only these two paths matter.
As I make the mention of billboards, it occurs to me that the dilemma of students does not just end with making a choice in the two-fold path but extends to deciding which factories for producing rank-chasers they must submit themselves to. With flashy banners showing toppers, huge and hollow promises of IITs and AIIMS, and a simple conveyor-belt curriculum utterly devoted to cracking such exams, coaching centres have not just commercialised education but also anxiety and repackaged it as aspiration. No coaching centre solely responds to the JEE-NEET craze, but it is their own product.
But a question arises when you ask a high school student, ‘If not medicine or engineering, what would you like to do?’ There is a high probability that the student will not have an answer, or even if there is an answer, it is highly improbable that it will be enough to let the child choose his own path. This again is a systemic fault. Even the schools in Kashmir push students into the revered two-fold path. You may visit a school and sadly realise that even children are unlikely to ask questions such as “Why do we have toes?” “Where does the sun go during the night?” “Why is zero a number?” These seemingly foolish questions are fundamental to shaping a curious mind into a writer, researcher, journalist, thinker, or artist. But you will find that these conversations around dreams have been replaced with comparisons, and children who once wanted to become writers, researchers, journalists, thinkers, or artists now silently rehearse physics equations they do not care about. Not because they lack the courage to chase their dreams — but because the world around them has taught them to stop. Lately, children have seen increased enrolment in coaching right from their primary schooling and from their 8th grade, coaching becomes a serious matter. The career orientation almost begins from here. It’s where all the paths merge to form a two-way path.
What then can be done? The question does not have a simple answer. One might refer to the recent ban on the coaching industry in China, but that is just not it. Nothing in this world is purely good or entirely ill; all things carry within them shades of both. When the ill overpowers the good, a revolution must follow. While drafting this article, I came across one such try at this revolution. A student group that followed the two-fold path decided one random day that if they did not have an answer to the two-fold path at that time, why should they not help others discover it? This group of NIT, GMC, SKUAST, and Delhi University students has a dream. The dream of revolutionising education in Kashmir. They call themselves “Koshur Scientist”.
While still labelled as an ed-tech platform, the difference I found is that there is rarely any mention of acing any exam. This seems unconventional for a coaching platform, but then they come with a dream, a dream of revolution. Perhaps, they have realised that the answer to that question can only be discovered when one finds oneself not in the race right from the first step on the ladder. They bring together like-minded people and aim to change how a student is taught, such that a student has their own thoughts. This makes Koshur Scientist a rebellion of its kind. This collective dared to think differently — not of producing toppers, but of nurturing thinkers. The revolution pivot is to reclaim learning from the clutches of fear and put it back into the hands of curiosity. They may still teach physics, chemistry, and biology — but in the way that invites questions, not just answers. There is one takeaway from this step, if not anything else, that education was never meant to be a race, but a journey. That children are not ranks waiting to be published, but minds waiting to be awakened. And perhaps, if more such revolutions begin — softly, patiently — the two-fold path will finally give way to a thousand new roads.
Hibban Showkat
hi***********@***il.com