Students suffer, forced to travel long distances for education
By: Ahmad Shabir
Anantnag: The sanctioning of Government Degree College (GDC) to Qazigund in 2019 has failed to provide any major relief to the students as the authorities in the last four years have not been to ensure infrastructure for Science and Commerce streams, leaving the students to lurch at large.
In 2019, when the government sanctioned a degree college to Qazigund, the students of the area had a sigh of relief, hoping that their agonies to travel long distances to pursue higher education would now come to an end.
However, four years have elapsed students aspiring to take up medical subjects still have to seek admissions in Degree College Khanabal as the Degree College offers admission in arts stream only.
Due to the non-availability of land for the construction of the college in the area, the higher education department took over the building of the ‘Gate way of Kashmir’ belonging to the tourism department and started academic activities in 2019.
The college at present has three batches with nearly 300 students on rolls.
However, scores of people of the area who spoke to Precious Kashmir and said that the College has only Arts streams available, thus forcing all the students intending to take up medical streams to seek admission in GDC Anantnag, 22 kms from Qazigund.
“When College was sanctioned to the area, we had hoped that it would put an end to the agonies of our children to cover long distances to pursue bachelors. But it has failed to serve the purpose as the College does not have medical and commerce subjects,” said a local, Abdul Rashid, whose son is pursuing B.Sc at GDC Khanabal.
Sources in the College said that the institute does not qualify for the medical stream for its poor infrastructure.
“University grants permission for starting medical stream on the basis of required infrastructure which the college remains devoid of. Besides the college has not enough accommodation for accommodating students of other streams as the building from which it functions had been designed on the basis of tourism activities,” an official said.
Precious Kashmir spoke to principal of the College, Muhammad Maqbool Ilahi, who also cited the poor resources as the reasons for the College not having other streams other than arts.
“Given the space and other infrastructure available, the college cannot accommodate students from medical and other streams,” the Principal said.
He, however, said that another building block is coming up in the premises of the College and it will be only after the completion of the building, the College may be granted permission for the introducing medical subjects.
“Once the building comes up, we may establish the science laboratories and other facilities required for teaching science subjects,” Principal said.
