Srinagar, Jun 16: Kupwara district has witnessed a significant expansion in private educational institutions over the last four years as 32 new private schools have been established between 2019 and 2024.
The development comes amid the merger of government schools over the past several years, due to meagre or zero enrollment of students in the schools. As per the official figures produced in reply to the RTI application filed by MM Shuja, the Chief Education Officer (CEO) Kupwara has stated that 32 new private schools have been established in Kupwara district from 2019 to 2024. The frontier district has seen a steady rise in the number of private educational institutions.
The growing expansion has pointed out the growing demand for private schooling across urban as well as rural areas of the frontier district. The official figures reveal that Kupwara district currently has a vast network of government and private schools spread across its educational zones, including Kupwara, Handwara, Langate, Kralpora, Tangdar, Trehgam, Rajwar, Vilgam, Mawer, Drugmulla, Sogam and Khumriyal. The newly established private schools have come up in different parts of the district, particularly in areas where parents have increasingly been seeking alternatives to government-run institutions. The growth has been especially visible several educational zones where several new schools have been registered in the recent years. The experts have raised eyebrows over the massive expansion of the private educational institutions in the district which has witnessed merger of government schools in the past few years. “The mushrooming growth of private schools also contributes to the declining student enrollment in government schools which are already getting lukewarm response from students for admissions, due to lack of proper infrastructure and other facilities,” an official told Greater Kashmir, wishing not to be named. “The increase in the number of private schools points to changing educational preferences among families as most of the families in urban pockets opt private schools,” he added.
As per the official data, Kupwara district currently has 1692 educational institutions including 1376 government schools and 316 private schools respectively.
As per the official figures, as many as 193 teachers have retired from the education department from 2019 to 2024 while no fresh recruitment has been carried out for the teachers during these years. “14 teachers were terminated from the department between 2019 to 2024,” the document reads. As per the official statistics, the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) in Kupwara schools is 1:16 while several schools in the district are operating from the rented buildings as well. Earlier reported by this newspaper, minister for education, Sakina Itoo said the government will shift the schools from rented buildings to permanent infrastructure, in a phased manner while vacant teaching positions will be filled as well.
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