mushtaq hurrah
Throughout my formative school days, my father would often captivate me and my siblings with engrossing anecdotes of college students. He would fill our dinners and breakfasts with his adoration for collegiates. He would unfold his random encounters with collegiates of 70s and 80s in Kashmir valley during his frequent travels to Srinagar by bus. I could easily discern his latent yet unrealized aspiration of being a collegiate, because his palm lines were too twisted to let him tread the path of a college. So, he most probably wanted to sublimate this unfulfilled dream through the academic pursuits of my siblings and myself. And my father possessed the knack of romanticizing a collegiate in the best possible way.
The term “ Collegiate “ cemented in my conscious and subconscious like a fantasy. No cricketer or film star was living in my dreams except an anonymous collegiate. I would often dream of wearing bell bottom trousers, expansive leather belts, shirts with wider collars, hippie length hair billowing in the zephyr, a couple of books in hand and boarding a bus to Srinagar on daily basis. With every passing day, my longing would surge, I could see my destiny closer and closer. My father’s way of sharing success stories of collegiates didn’t only involved us in riveting tales but fueled our wagons to the corridors of colleges and universities. Ordinary narration of my father led us to extraordinary achievements in the field of education. His narration proved a catalyst for me and my siblings.
Two to three decades ago, collegiates were admired and respected by one and all in the society. Every parent would crave to see his son in a college. Parents whose sons were college going students, would expand their chests with pride. It was equally a matter of esteem and reverence for a boy or a girl to attend a college. Charisma and respect etched to college and collegiates was something remarkably high. Even collegiates were competent and skilled enough to carry out any specific job. Though the admissions to colleges were not selective, but the then examination system was probably quite formidable and strenuous, and only the competent could penetrate through the impenetrable layers of the filtration system. Matriculation examination was the first litmus test for a student to decide his fate to attend a college. Now, we have undoubtedly lowered the guage of our examinations, and consequently, the purity of gold is compromised. Now, neither colleges nor collegiates possess that awe and admiration.
A recent news item has created ripples in the educational and social circles of Jammu and kashmir union territory. Some startling figures shared by higher education department of Jammu and Kashmir reveal that the response to recent undergraduate courses across most of the degree colleges is not only minimal but shocking as well. Albeit the premier colleges of Jammu and Kashmir, dozen of colleges have failed to attract a substantial number of students for different undergraduate courses. According to official data, 100 out of 142 colleges have registered fewer than 100 admissions after first two rounds of the process.
One of the famous journalists from Baramulla stated that these degree colleges are going to meet the fate of SSA schools in the coming future. I don’t have other ideas to his opinion. A student from the far flung areas of South or North Kashmir prefers Amar Singh College Or Islamia College Srinagar over a college adjacent to his village. The student is driven to Srinagar beyond its glare and glint. The academic and intellectual appeal in these fresh colleges is exiguous. The colleges with scant enrollments deprive students of peer exposure. Their intellectual acumen remains in dormancy for meagre learning opportunities available there. Infrastructure in place, the faculty available and the legacy of excellence that prompts a young lad to pursue his dreams in Srinagar, Sopore or Baramulla, is totally missing in these new colleges. I think, genuine reason are failing these to attract students.
Let’s delve a deeper into the conundrum. Something is grievously absent in these newly set degree colleges of our union territory. A college operating from a fewer rooms is no way a college. You may run an elementary school from a cramped space, but you can’t cage the Falcons who have just reached the zenith of their youth. The vibrant minds need space to give vent to their energy, curiosity and potential. College at your doorstep has, paradoxically, dulled the interest of students. Convenience has come at the cost of culture. These skeletal campuses fail to ignite the healthy friction of peer exchange, the chance encounters that sharpen thought and acollegiate. A true degree college draws students from diverse regions. It becomes a confluence of dialects, dreams, and dissent, and in that confluence, peer learning thrives, ideas collide, horizons expand, and ordinary students are tempered into collegiates. If schools with meagre enrollment are clubbed or merged for viability, why should hollow colleges escape the same fate? To let them persist is to clip the wings of our youth and call it flight. A college must be more than a building with a board. It must be a landscape where young falcons learn to soar.
The Author is a Teacher and a Columnist from Bandipora District. He can be reached at mushtaqhurra143@gmail.com
