One undergraduate student was killed in police firing and two college principals shot at, apparently by students, in recent weeks in the Kashmir valley, where university authorities are struggling to stop cheating during examinations.
As academic discipline and systems fell by the wayside amid insurgency over the past seven years, most students have got used to carrying textbooks and notes into examination halls and copying answers. Under threat of violence by some students, many of them armed, invigilators generally turned a blind eye. The credibility of the exams was gone, mass copying was there, says the states education minister, Abdul Qayoom.
The result: The number of graduates in Kashmir increased by 40,000 between 1990 and 1996, compared with 5,000 between 1970 and 1990. Everyone who came - at gunpoint and all that - they were allowed to pass, says Qayoom.
More From This Section
The large majority attended almost no lectures, participating in the insurgency or running family businesses instead. They either copied their way to the pass mark or sent a better read brother or friend to write the examination instead. Teachers had virtually given up their authority, admits Professor Afzal Qadiri, dean of students welfare at the University of Kashmir.
This year, backed by the new state government, most teachers are determined to put an end to the copying. Arshad Qureshi, a final year student of Srinagars Sri Pratap College, says second year students in the all-male college were stripped to their shorts and searched by policemen before being allowed into the examination halls last month.
Now, some third year students are determined that they be allowed to copy when their examinations begin on July 23. On July 5, three shots were fired into Sri Pratap College Principal Abdul Latif Lathers office from the corridor. Lather, who was hosting a farewell tea for one of his colleagues, says he is sure the shots were fired by a student and were aimed at him. He was later warned by telephone that his daughter and son would be kidnapped and killed if discipline was enforced during the third year examinations. Already, during second year exams, the principal of Gandhi Memorial College was slapped in an examination hall and even women invigilators were pushed around at Amar Singh College, where much of the furniture in the colleges Old Block was destroyed during an exam.
At Srinagars Islamia College of Commerce and Sciences, there was a riot during a second year commerce exam on June 12. After students assaulted some of the invigilators and the police on duty at the college, the police used tear gas and then fired. A student, Farooq Ahmed Raja, was killed and at least one other student was seriously injured.
A few days later, a shot was fired at acting principal AR Sahaf as he was driving out of the college gate. Stones were pelted at his house and he was threatened by telephone. Some young men arrived with threats at the doorstep of Ahmed Sayeed Pakliwal, head of Islamias department of English. The men who came to my residence threatened me with dire consequences. I dont know if they are students or militants, he says.
These and other teachers say they are nevertheless determined to stop the copying. Qayoom adds that the policy of the government is now or never. If we bow, succumb under the pressure, the things will remain the way they were.
Those who will conduct third year exams may not find it easy, though. Students, who expected that the pattern of recent years would continue and so did not study through the year, are - to quote Parvez Ahmed Wani, a third year student at Islamia - in panic. Rafiq Ahmed, a third year B.Sc student of Sri Pratap College, says: In first year, we studied a little at home. But those that copied got high marks. Those that studied got low marks. So, in second year, very few studied. We knew wed pass through copying.
Now, says Sabia, a second year science student of the Government College for Women, when copying stops, everyone will fail. She and other women students add, though, that girls colleges remained disciplined while copying became the norm in all-male colleges, the majority in the valley.
Many students argue that they have no option but to cheat since the system has been in chaos, syllabi not completed, and lectures not delivered. First they should put pressure on professors to teach, says Mohammed Haider Ali, a second year general sciences student of Islamia college. Sahaf delivered only two lectures to his first year class last year, he says. How can he tell other teachers to take their classes? Sahaf explains that the times were disturbed.
Alis classmate, Mohammed Aslam, adds that many teachers spend their time on private tuitions, making money from rich students while the poor suffer without lectures. But Mohammed Shafi Wani, who teaches English at Islamia, counters that tuitions were at a peak even in peace time.
Another classmate, Sohail Ahmed Mir, adds that his class had only one session in the chemistry laboratory throughout the second year.
The college was destroyed in arson on October 14, 1990 because the BSF used it as an interrogation centre. Some laboratories were recently rebuilt but, for some years, there were no laboratories or libraries. More than 50,000 books were destroyed in the fire, says Sahaf.