Srinagar, Apr 23: With the government having ordered closure of private tuition centres here, an association of coaching centres on Monday said that they won’t close the institutions until the government ended the ambiguity surrounding the decision.
Addressing a press conference in Srinagar, the Coaching Centres’ Association of Kashmir (CCAK) said the centres will remain open from tomorrow as “no official order has been issued so far ordering them to close the institutions”.
“There is no clarity which institutions have to be shut,” said general secretary CCAK Latief Masudie, while appealing to the government to end the “ambiguity”.
He said the coaching for the competitive exams started from ninth grade only. “There are national and international level exams which are held in class 9th. Also students start preparing for JEE and NEET exams from class 11th,” he said.
Yesterday, Education Minister Altaf Bukhari said that the coaching centres will be requested to close for 90 days as the government wanted to see how this will affect “class-work in the schools.”
The closure order, however, exempted tuition centres for competitive exams like NEET and JEE, and for students who have passed standard 12.
“Let the government take us on board, we will be ready to cooperate wherever our help is needed. But imposing inspector rule is totally unacceptable to us,” said CCAK president, G.N War.
War said coaching centers will continue to operate until and unless any formal notification is issued by the State government.
He also alleged that the government by closing coaching centers is trying to hide its failures as it has miserably failed to contain student’s protests against the Kathua incident.
“Since government could not control students to hit streets, they took a dictatorial decision to close coaching centre’s to hide its failures,” War said, adding that “out of fifty days, students have attended their respective colleges and schools for twenty days only.”
He said the owners of private coaching centers have time and again assured to extend full cooperation to the government in taking actions against violators.
CCAK president said instead of closing down unregistered coaching centers, government made a dictatorial order of closing all registered coaching centers for 90 days without consulting them.
“We have time and again said that school education is compulsory and thus seeking coaching from us is a matter of choice and not compulsion. We don’t force students to join coaching centers,” said he.
He asked the government to come up with some firm regulation vis-à-vis coaching centers and whatever cooperation is needed from their side will be extended.
He said it’s mandatory to create a mechanism between the concerned so that the issues including fee structure are resolved.
