Srinagar, Jan 10: Coaching Centres Association of Kashmir (CCAK) on Monday criticised the J&K government’s decision to “close” the tuition centres amid an increase in COVID cases, saying the administration was “singling out” the education sector while others continue to function as normal.
While schools remain shut owing to winter vacation, the J&K administration, in view of COVID spike and threat of new variant Omicron, has directed that coaching centres too shift to online mode of education to prevent disease spread through student crowding.
“Whenever there is even a slight increase in COVID cases, the education sector becomes the first casualty. We fail to understand why the government seems to be keen to close down education sectors in the wake of even a slight increase in covid cases,” said a spokesperson of CCAK in a presser in Srinagar.
“After closing down schools and education institutes for years, the government has now closed down the only functional classes which were working hard to compensate for the loss of academics to these students,” he added.
The association said that students were “paying heavy price for the current situation as their studies have been heavily affected”.
“As of now all the activities of life like festivals, business establishments, overcrowded public transport, rallies etc go on normally, but only the academic classes are being targeted. Even WHO has said that we have to get used to living with Covid by adopting Covid Appropriate Behaviour (CAB),” said the spokesperson.
The association said that the coaching centres were “adopting all preventive measures”.
It said the students were being vaccinated and CAB was being ensured at the centres, adding “most of our students and entire staff are vaccinated”.”If on one hand, the government is promoting vaccination of students, then why has the government suddenly come up with an order to close down coaching centres? There is a contradiction in government working too.”
The association said that instead of closing the coaching centres, the government should implement strict CAB saying that it was the “best way to defeat COVID”.
“Multiple studies have shown that complete lockdown doesn’t help in prevention and instead it increases the suffering of people especially students,” the association claimed.