Tag: kashmir education

The College Crisis

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With a huge network of colleges and a lot of enrolment, the students are dissatisfied with the pace and process of the education they get, reports Babra Wani
Girl students of a college in Srinagar enjoying the sunshine on the premises of the college. KL Image: Bilal Bahadur
With her eyes glued to her mobile, Saima (name changed) is watching a lecture on Scaler and Vector quantities. With the uncertainty of the presence of teachers in her school looming large, she has been preparing for her upcoming examination virtually.
A student of Government Degree College, Kangan, Saima prefers not to attend the college where she is enrolled for BSc. She stopped going to her college because of the “lack of permanent staff for her subjects.” The deficit was managed by contractual lecturers, who leave the college when their contracts expire. “I mean if we talk about the present, we have no teachers there and our exams are about to begin in a month,” she said.
The lack of permanent teachers and staff is not a one-college problem but a pan-higher education issue in Kashmir. It literally triggered a sort of a “scandal” when a college principal formally ordered teachers from unrelated subjects to “engage” students in absence of the relevant faculty.
Karnah Story
Just like Saima, Zahra (name changed) is concerned and worried about the lack of teachers. A fifth-semester BA student at Government Degree College Tanghdar, Zahra recalls how she was a happy girl when she passed her higher secondary examinations just to get admission to the college. The excitement, however, soon went down as she realised the harsh realities.
“Living in a remote area was already challenging enough,” Zahra said. “We already knew that our college will not provide us with the facilities but we never knew that our issues will never be even heard.”
For her, the lack of permanent staff is her biggest concern. “Due to staff issues, we suffer from a lot of academic loss as we are not able to cover the whole syllabus and hence rely completely on self-study to prepare for examinations,” Zahra said. “Ours is a remote area so if we students face any problems here, they are rarely addressed.”

Located some 67 km north of Srinagar, beyond the Sadhna Pass, Tanghdar(Karnah) is located literally on the line of control (LOC). The area remains closed for most of the winter and there are cases when the authorities had to retain the dead in mortuaries till the road opened. The college, established in 2008 has more than 700 students on its rolls. This load is being managed by seven permanent teachers and three contractual teachers!
The Tulail Story
For 20 years old Adnan (name changed) walking for five kilometres to reach the college seems to be a daily routine. In 2019, when he and his friends heard about the establishment of a degree college, they were excited. They thought their hardships will now slow down. “We just have two permanent teachers here, one for history and one for English,” Adnan said.
For more than sixty students enrolled with Government Degree College Tulail, there are only six teachers, with two permanent and four contractual. Located at a distance of 200 km from Srinagar, Tulailis part of Gurez, the new destination for naya Kashmir tourism. The college was established in 2019.
Supposed to help residents not to migrate – as most of Gurez lives between Bandipore and Srinagar, the college could have hugely contributed. Students, however, insist this is not the case.
“We have a history teacher, right?,” one student pointed out. “History as a subject is not taught here. I mean we have other subjects here but not history so technically we have no teachers to study from.”
These teachers engage students in classes organised on a shift basis. Students insist they have bigger issues. “We do not even have our separate principal. The principal of our college watches over two different colleges (the other one is at Dawar), we neither have professors, principal nor facilities here,” Adnan who is currently studying in BA third semester said.
Due to the lack of facilities, mostly a shortage of teachers, students prefer to stay home. This, they do after paying fees and costs for the degrees. Days ahead of the examination, the colleges start assessing attendance and enforcing shortages on them. “Tell me how does it make sense that students travel long distances for hours together, jeopardising their health to study here but there are no teachers? Not even a single official has ever visited us, we have been left to the mercy of the Lord,” a visibly upset Adnan complained.
The lack of staff is not the only issue for the colleges in Gurez. “Last year, when we were writing our examinations, we knew we were appearing for three subjects,” Adnan said. “It was during the examinations that the college told us we have to appear in two more subjects – the subjects we never knew. We were desperate for what to write and a day before we had to write the examination, they sent the syllabus of that subject.”
Students arrive at a college after a gap of nearly one year, following Covid19 safety guidelines issued by the government, in Srinagar, Monday, February 15, 2021. All the educational institutes including schools, colleges and universities in Jammu and Kashmir, which were closed in March last year in wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. KL Image: Bilal Bahadur
The Kashmir Plains
The staff crisis is not a high-altitude issue. Even the colleges within and around Srinagar are suffering.
In Government Degree College, Sumbal, the students said the teachers for skill enhancement courses, which have been recently introduced, are not permanent. They are contractual and keep changing. “The continuous cycle of changing of these contractual teachers results in a month-long gap in the session,” one student said. “The month is wasted which is worrisome as it affects our studies.”
The Sumbal College was established in 2010 and has an enrolment of more than 2500 students. In the neighbouring degree college at Hajin, students are crying for a physical education teacher.
A Teacher Deficit
Subsequent governments in Jammu and Kashmir have gone into the creation of a huge network of colleges. Some villages that had put up huge struggles to get their middle schools upgraded into high schools are now addresses for the new colleges. There were around 161 colleges for general education with an overall enrolment of 151478 students manned by 5745 teachers by the end of 2020-21. With the onset of the National Education Policy (NEP-2020), the government made huge plans about improving higher education. It included making five autonomous degree-granting colleges into Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities, a sort of deemed universities. In fact, the government said three are already operating as autonomous colleges. There was a focus on skill and innovation.
Under NEP-2020, 30 colleges have been identified for the start of research and designated as Hub colleges. These are supposed to provide basic facilities of infrastructure and logistics to the rest of the colleges in their catchment.
On the ground, however, nothing much is visible. “How can these colleges become research centres, when prestigious colleges like Amar Singh College are yet to grant the right to its first and second-semester students to get into the library,” one student, speaking anonymously asked. “Students have been desperately seeking library cards but we are told the access to the library is permitted to higher semester students.”
The NAAC accreditation is the new mad race within colleges in which the assessment is mostly based on the infrastructure and the results – nobody is seeing, if at all, the students are taught in classrooms. Officials said 55 colleges in Jammu and Kashmir are NAAC accredited 17 more will be added to the list by December 2023. By 2025, 70 old colleges will be NAAC accredited.
Right now, most colleges are battling the faculty issue. This triggered a controversy when the management of a state-run women’s college in Baramulla asked the faculty from unrelated subjects to engage “classes of the departments (currently) without staff”.Teachers from Education, Physical Education, and Sports were asked to engage in the classes of Political Science; Chemistry faculty was assigned Public Administration; Botany teachers were supposed to engage in Economics; the Zoology department was given Social Work and Mathematics was to manage the Philosophy students.
This was the outcome of the higher education department not filling the vacancies on a temporary basis by the middle of March, almost a month after the colleges opened after the winter break. It created a sort of scandal and the college principal was asked to amend or withdraw the order. As it did not happen, the authorities issued a show cause notice. Insiders said the college asserted that the faults are at the policymaking level and not the college level.
A Generation Lost
For the last nearly two decades, the higher education department has been hiring teachers on an academic arrangement basis against a consolidated sum. They are disengaged every season. They lack any rights to leave, provident fund and other facilities that permanent faculty enjoy. Over the years they have been the main players in the higher education department.
“Every year, the government used to hire 800 to 1000 teachers on an academic arrangement basis,” Dr M Yousuf, one of the contractual lecturers said. “With the NEP, the requirement might have gone slightly up, maybe up to 1200.”
For a very long time, there was a rule in Jammu and Kashmir government that if somebody worked for the government for seven years, he or she has a right to be permanently hired. They had gone to court with the plea and secured an order directing authorities to ensure the people are not disturbed. So, every year, the government would hire them on priority. Post-2019, the government stopped extending this courtesy to them and instead started hiring new faces. Some of the contractual impacts by this decision in Jammu went to the supreme court and secured an order. Yousuf said while the order was implemented in Jammu, it was breached in Kashmir. Now, they have gone to CAT and are expecting a positive decision.
“This crisis ended up almost destroying their career of nearly 500 contractual teachers –mostly PhDs’, who served the department for 15 t 20 years and then the government stopped hiring them and they crossed the age bar,” Yousuf, one of these candidates, said. “Now we are no-bodies, we gave our entire life to these institutions and now we have nothing to do.”
Yousuf said the delay in hiring teachers on an academic arrangement basis is the main issue that is hitting the colleges right now. “There is a set norm for how many students a teacher must have but I know cases, where one teacher is assigned 600 students.”
Transportation Facilities
Teaching is just one part of the crisis. Students allege, there are other issues as well. Transportation is a key factor. Though almost every college has a transport facility, quite a few busses move out of the college.
“Some students in my college walk a distance of around 26 km to reach the college,” Adnan said. “Why we do not have the transport facility as other colleges have.”
In Government Degree College Kangan, the students have a similar complaint. “We have no transportation facility here, I mean that is basic,” one student said.
Various colleges have buses but lack the funds to hire a driver. In certain cases, they have drivers but not enough money to fuel the bus.
In the newly established Government Degree College Hajin, students allege the ground is in puddles, “Whenever it rains, the ground accumulates water and it becomes difficult to even walk through it let alone be any other thing,” Ahmad (name changed) who is currently enrolled in arts stream in the college said, “We don’t even have proper classrooms. In the main building only a few classes are taught, the rest of the classes are conducted in a hut which has a couple of rooms.” Besides, he said there is still an old building, which used to be a middle school in the past, on the ground there.
“Even if available, the washrooms are not located in proper settings,” he said.
Government Degree College Hajin is one of the 52 new colleges which were established in the year 2019.
City Colleges
Zubair (name changed) and his friends made a decision to get admitted to Amar Singh College, a prominent city college. As soon as he joined the first semester his perspective changed. A student in the second semester at present, Zubair had a list of issues to share, “You know there is no punctuality, I mean the classes are never conducted on time. The teachers are always late and never on time.”
Amar Singh College, Srinagar
The college, Zubair added, lacks hygiene, has dirty desks in classrooms, unclean washrooms and abundant stray dogs. This is in addition to the staff shortage. “We have been waiting since March for the teacher, as the contract of our previous teacher expired,” he said. The lack of mics in the classrooms is yet another concern for the students. “The classrooms are huge and the teachers are not audible to everybody in the class.”
The students said they have no access t the library. It has been done so easily. The college has not issued identity cards which are basic to entry into the library.
“This college has no proper gatekeeping and outsiders who are not even enrolled in our college get in and fight with the students of our college,” one female student said. “There is nobody who can check the people getting in.” Students confirmed the drug-peddling boys moving around.
Students of Women’s’ College Nawa Kadal alleged that the government is frequently shifting their principals. This, they said, is impacted the college.
In Women’s College MA Road, the students complained how the focus has been more on extra-curricular activities and not on education, “The classwork always suffers the most.”
Officials Admit
College managers and insiders admitted to the lot of issues they are facing. However, they insist they are not supposed to talk the way they used to talk earlier. Some of them agreed to talk in utmost anonymity.
“Yes, there is no college bus for students and the majority of the faculty positions are vacant except English and History,” echoing the thoughts of the students an official posted in Government Degree College, Tulail said. The official added that they have tried bringing it to the notice of authorities from time to time, “We had taken up the matter with our ex-principal secretary and he told that they were ready to sanction the college bus but it was not possible to engage any driver as there is a blanket ban on contractual or local fund recruitment.” He also lamented over the trend of teachers from Gurez and Tulail ensuring they are transferred to other places outside Gurez. “What can we expect from the teachers who are hired on a contractual basis.”
Most of the college managers approached to offer their side of the story but refused to talk. “Maybe next time,” one college principal said.

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( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

April 15, 2023
NEP Prevents Class-I Admission For Students Slightly Less Than Six Years of Age

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SRINAGAR: A group of Jammu parents with school-aged children held a protest against the recently implemented National Education Policy. The demonstration, organized by the All Jammu Parents Association, was led by Amit Kapoor and took place at Hari Singh Park, reports reaching from Jammu said.
The students at the prayers in the state-run Government Middle School, Naibug, Tral, get a lesson in morals and cleanliness. The teachers of the school contributed from their salaries to fund the school’s infrastructure deficit. KL Image Shakir Ashraf
The parents were protesting against the new policy’s age limit requirement for admission into the first class. They argued that children who are currently in Upper KG or UKG, and whose ages fall just short of six years, are being denied entry into first grade.
During the protest, the parents chanted slogans against the policy and demanded that the minimum age limit for class I admission be relaxed. Amit Kapoor suggested that the age criteria should be implemented from nursery or pre-nursery and that children who are already studying should be admitted to first grade. Kapoor also urged Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to personally intervene and grant age relaxation, citing the Goa government’s decision to delay the implementation of the new policy until 2025-26.
The parents emphasized that the current policy had caused distress to many children and parents alike, and appealed for the sake of their children’s future.
Jammu and Kashmir implemented the National Education Policy that was rolled out in India in July 2020, and aims to revamp the country’s education system. One of the policy’s objectives is to ensure that every child receives high-quality education from an early age. To achieve this, the policy sets forth certain age limits for admission into various classes.
As per the current policy, children must be at least six years old to be admitted into class I. This criterion is based on research that suggests that children of this age are developmentally ready to transition from pre-primary education to formal schooling.
However, some parents have argued that this age limit is too rigid, and that it fails to take into account the individual developmental needs of each child. They contend that children who are slightly younger than six years old but have already completed UKG are just as capable of succeeding in class I as their peers who meet the age requirement.

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( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

March 19, 2023
What Is ChatGPT And Why Is Everybody Talking About It?

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by Mujtaba Hussain
SRINAGAR: What is ChatGPT? A buzzword that is everywhere in the virtual world of social media giants and is being discussed everywhere from schools, colleges, corporates, multinationals, and news organizations. Is it really going to create an inflexion in jobs?
Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Robotics
ChatGPT is a sophisticated Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) tool that gives intelligent solutions upon giving a simple prompt. It became the fastest-growing consumer application by amassing 100 million active users within two months of its launch, surpassing TikTok (9 months) and Instagram (2.5 years).
In its own narration, ChatGPT is a text-based conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) model designed to generate natural language text that is relevant and appropriate in response to a given prompt, making it a powerful tool for conversational AI systems. It is based on the Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) language model, i.e, it has been trained on a large data set of text from the internet to generate human-like responses to various types of questions.
ChatGPT is a Large Language Model (LLM) based AI platform integrated with the messaging platform. It can generate text with a simple query. It is developed by the San-Francisco based Start-up called “OpenAI”. Founded in 2015, the company is financially backed by hard-hitting entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley like Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman along with Venture Capital (VC) firms like Khosla Ventures, Tiger Global, Andreessen Horowitz, and Microsoft.
ChatGPT has been fine-tuned on vast amounts of data and can produce comprehensive output much like human beings. It can also answer follow-up questions. From remedies to any disease to poetry in the John Keats style, to legal briefs, to bugs in a computer code, to simple scripts, it can generate almost anything you could ask for.
ChatGPT triggered a new race in the development of Artificial Intelligence. Many Tech giants are betting billions to create their own chatbots. Google announced its own AI Chabot called Bardu, powered by Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA). Famously known China’s Google Baidu is also launching its AI Chabot called Ernie Bot the next month.
ChatGPT is like other Generative AI tools trained algorithmically to collect and generate new data that resembles human-generated content, including code, images, text, and simulations.

The fourth Industrial Revolution is bound to create a fundamental change in the way we live, work, and relate to one another. Artificial Intelligence enabled technology has been at the forefront of this revolution. AI is simply defined as simulating the intelligent behaviour in machines and computers. AI is more than the behemoth creatures shown in Science fiction movies. It is like normally written software with exceptional capabilities like the human brain. Advanced AI programmes can learn new things by themselves when catered to large data sets and will execute the actions accordingly.
Although discussions about advanced Artificial intelligence tools have been going around for a decade or more, ChatGPT became the curtain raiser to AI for the world to understand it better. According to Statista, investment in AI reached 94 billion dollars from 2015-2021 and is expected to exceed the mark of US 135 billion dollars in 2023.
ChatGPT is still in its infancy stage, and the endgame of AI-based chatbots is difficult to predict, but tech prodigies all over the world believe that it will create a disruption in Big Tech, industries, and the future of work.

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( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

February 12, 2023
The Sopore College

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Despite contributing to the making of generations of professionals in the last more than seven decades, the state-run Degree College at Sopore is yet to reach a level where it can have NAC top grade, reports Daanish Bin Nabi
The team of teachers who have contributed immensely to the making of Sopore college an important centre of higher education.
Precisely, the credit must go to politician Malik Abdul Gani and businessman Sukhdev Ganjoo who were instrumental in setting up the intermediate college at Sopore in 1949. They later literally chased the then Prime Minister, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah to upgrade it into a college. On September 27, 1951, Sheikh laid the foundation stone of Degree College Sopore, with 50 students on its rolls. After 71 years, the college has 6000 boys and girls on its rolls. What distinguishes the college is that after the inaugural ceremony, no head of the Jammu and Kashmir ever visited the college.
Till the 1980s, students from north Kashmir would join the college after matriculation and study for four years and leave as graduates. Initially affiliated with erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir University it is one of the oldest affiliate colleges of the University of Kashmir.
“This college has been the highest seat of learning for over 60 years for the entire north Kashmir,” Prof Abdul Rashid, who has served the college for 11 years, said. “We cannot negate the role of this institution in spreading education to the far-flung border areas.”
Till the 1970s, it is interesting to mention, the college was housing SKUAST’s Agriculture College, till it managed its own premises at Wagoora.
The Bakhshi Era
In Ghulam Muhammad Bakhshi’s rule, when Jashn-e-Kashmir dominated the scene. Degree College Sopore was the epicentre of activities in north Kashmir. Teachers who served the institution then, remember that a large stage used to be installed and artists from all over Kashmir like the famous Qawal Zakhmir and Gani Trali (a famed Bach Kot from Tral) would perform.
Interestingly, however, during Bakhshi era, the college had fewer enrolments of girl students. There were only three girl students in college in the 1950s. Their number only increased from three to ten in the 1960s. It was only at the dawn of the 1970s that girls started to enrol in impressive numbers.

A Golden Era
The 1960s is being seen as the college’s golden age and the credit goes to its Principal Abdul Salaam Dhar, a resident of Srinagar. A tough disciplinarian and the main architect of the college, Sopore remembers Dhar by the nickname Hachkal (Woodhead).
“It was our luck that we had him as our head,” Prof Muhammad Abdullah Charoo, who served as Principal for 8 years till July 1998, said. “He was upright, disciplined and honest and would listen to no excuses whatsoever.”
Foundation stone of Sopore college. KL Image Daanish bin Nabi
Dhar introduced a uniform – a grey blazer and grey trousers and a white shirt, the first in any Kashmir college. On the pattern of erstwhile Biscoe-style, he constituted small volunteer groups who would help people during natural disasters.
“No influential person would get admission during his time. All the tenders during his time were full proof. There was no compromise with anything,” remembers Prof Sheikh Sanaullah, who served the college for 33 years. “The cheating during the examination was rampant in the college and he curbed it.”
An Interesting Event
People talk about an interesting event. Veteran Congressman and lawmaker, Ghulam Rasool Kar of Sopore lived in the same vicinity, facing the college. In the early 1960s, he came from Srinagar in a bus that dropped him college gate. Then, the college had no fence. Kar tried to cross the college ground to reach home. Dhar interrupted him and asked him not to trespass on the college property. To Kar’s credit, being a sitting MLA, he patiently listened to the college principal and obeyed his orders.
“I was a student of the college in the 1960s. I vividly remember, Principal Dhar had installed simple boards all across the ground which read ‘trespassers will be prosecuted’. No one dared to cross the college property,” Charoo said. “Those were the days when the institution head would assert the authority and the society would take it very seriously.”
It was in Dhar’s era when the College launched Wullar magazine and every professor had to contribute to it.
Sheikh Sanaullah said that years before militancy broke out, one day students resorted to a protest demonstration in the town. In reaction, on the following day, paramilitary forces barged into the college and clashed with the students. “A professor provoked the students. After the issues were settled, Prof Dhar made an example of the professor. He was quickly shifted out of the college,” Sanaullah remembers.
Institutional Rivalry
Initially, the college opened for students in the eleventh class, then called PUC (pre-university class). Later, the Higher Secondary School was separated. Despite being separate entities, the two had a single umbilical cord – they share a common ground. On paper, the ground belonged to the Higher Secondary School.
In the 1960s, the Higher Secondary School was led by another visionary Principal, Abdul Gaffar Shah, a Geography lecturer. Like Dhar, Shah too was a man of principles, honest and upright.
Then, there was no demarcation of land between the two institutions and both would lay claim to the ground. Both the men stuck to their guns about the claims to the land and the stand-off between the two continued for many weeks. It happened in anticipation of a sports event.
The situation got out of control on the day of the event. The students from both institutions came to loggerheads with each other. Sensing the mess, they were landing their institutions in, and the two men sat down and sorted it out. “Had it not been Dhar and Shah, many would have died that day,” Sopore historian, Rasheed Parveen said. “There was rage on both sides. Students were young and immature.”
Up In Flames
However, the college did not remain unharmed for long. On the fateful night of October 7, 1990, at around 10 pm, a sudden blaze engulfed the entire college and burned it to cinders. The biggest loss was the destruction of a rich library housing 60,000 books. Some of the manuscripts that the Fourth Buddhist Council held at Harwan in Srinagar were also housed in the library along with other rare manuscripts. Nothing could be saved.
Sopore college went up in flames and was reconstructed but it lost hundreds of rare manuscripts. KL Image Daanish bin Nabi
“We have lost a treasure. We could rebuild the college but we never get back that library. We lost our Baghdad that day,” Parveen regretted.
It was Muhammad Abdullah Charoo who headed the college. “Militancy was at its peak,” Charoo remembers. “That evening, I heard loud shouting. As I got out of my house, I saw huge flames from a distance and someone said the college has been burnt. Helpless, I could do nothing. Neither police nor the Fire and Emergency Services reached the spot. It was only around Fajar time that I reached the premises. It was devastating to see the ruins.”
For Charoo, it was a new challenge – running a college that had no edifice. His first drive was to Raj Bhawan. He remembers Governor Girish Chandra Saxena telling him: “We can do nothing. unko bolo jinhoney jalaya.”
Charoo got 20 tents from the Department of Education and started routine classwork within ten days. However, there was no library, laboratory or sports facility for the students. For months, Charoo would go from one government office to another for seeking some support in rebuilding the edifice. Finally, it was Vijay Bakaya, who came up with an idea.
“Bakaya Sahab told me if I can somehow show that Sopore falls in border areas then there is a scheme with the Government of India known as Border Area Development Program (BADP) from where I can get funds for the college,” Charoo remembers the top officer’s help. “I went to Delhi to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and told them that Sopore College caters to students from Bandipora, Kupwara which extends to Teetwal and Gurez area.
The NCC cadets at the Sopore College in a session in 2017. KL Image Masood Hussain
This is how I managed to put Sopore in border areas and got funds for college rebuilding. After it was approved, I remember Education Commissioner, Sushma Chowdhary telling me ‘Mubarak ho Paison ki Barish hai…lelo…’. The college got Rs 75 lakh as the first instalment.
Charoo said he hired a Srinagar Engineer for the re-building of the college. The new building was made fireproof and the old design was retained. Around 25000 books were purchased but rare manuscripts were lost forever.
The Wall of Fame
The College has produced a generation of leaders in diverse fields. Some have brought accolades internationally too. These included doctors, Muhammad Yousuf Kanjwal, M Sultan Khuroo, Khurshid Ahmad Salman, Abdul Rahman Rather, Manzoor Halwai, and Muhammad Shafi Tara; politicians Abdul Ahad Vakil, Hakeem Habibullah, Abdul Gani Bhat, Saifuddin Soz and teachers like Haji Ghulam Hassan Bacha, M A Charoo, Jeelani Kamran and scribes like Shujaat Bukhari.
It has also produced some wonderful debaters like Ghulam Qadir Wani. The colleges bought accolades in 1967-68 when five students qualified for medical courses from the college.
“Prof Maqbool Bhat was my relative and used to teach us Botany. Even as my relative he was strict with me and he made sure that there is no discrimination against other students, former CMO, Khurshid Salman said. “Many of our science subjects were also taught by Pandit teachers.”
Sporting Venue
The Subhan Stadium, locally known as the college ground in Sopore, was named after Sopore’s “legendary” footballer, Subhan Janwari. His legend is interesting: “He was the first Sopore footballer who played football wearing a shoe. Having a shoe in those days was a luxury.”
Subhan Janwari belonged to Mumkak Mohalla of Sopore and played for the Mohammadan Sporting team in 1960.
“Almost all the players who have played at national or international level have had their basic training at the Sopore College Ground,” veteran cricketer, Bashir Ahmad Bhat, said. “However, we lack the basic facilities now. Sopore College has no contribution towards the sports facilities in the town. They even turned their own ground into a concrete jungle.”
During the 1960s and the 1970s, teams from Srinagar like the Transport Department Team; Food Department Team, KMD Team and the Police Team used to play at the Sopore College ground.
In the 1980s, Srinagar Transport Team led by Majeed Kakroo, the ace footballer who led the Indian team to Bangladesh, visited Sopore for a match with the host team. It triggered a crisis and led to Kakroo’s marshalling. The match was never played.
Presently, only two cricket tournaments and three football tournaments are being played between June and October at Sopore College ground. It has lost the sole venue of knowledge and sports.
Space Constraints
Though the college has 105 kanals of land in the heart of the town, the haphazard expansion of new buildings has shrunken the space. There are around three to four classes daily for every subject in 36 departments. The teaching staff caters to nearly 100 classes on daily basis.
College managers said more departments are coming up and there is a dire need for a satellite campus for the college. The departments of Biotechnology, Biochemistry, and BBA and a large Botanical Garden have come up inside the college and the college is craving more space.
In 2013, the college administration required the district administration to provide them with land for the construction of a satellite campus in Tuilbal area. Interestingly, the land identified for the college was eventually given for the construction of police.
“We requested the administration to provide us the land of Sopore’s District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), after the premises was shifted to Watlab but that too was not considered,” Prof Abdul Rashid said. The erstwhile DIET is adjacent to the College and is ideal for its use.
Upgradation
Within the premises, however, there are improvements. The college now uses a smart classroom, comprising a smart board with an internet broadband connection.
If a student misses the lecture he can join the classroom over her/his cell phone through an app. Students alleged that many of these smart classes are rarely used.
The fully automated library has 39850 books for 36 subjects. Students can access the material of other national and international universities too. A special detector Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) has also been installed to stop the theft of books from the library. “If a student attempts to steal a book, she/he can be detected and stopped,” Chief Librarian Dr Ansar Hussain said.
A new indoor stadium is also come up. Measuring 110 x 49 ft, it will soon be dedicated to students.
The College also runs two hostels one each for boys and girls. Unlike the boys’ hostel, the girls’ hostel is in shambles due to the management feud with the contractor.
Both its websites were down when accessed in October 2022, at the time of filing this report.
Despite all this, the college failed to impress the National Advisory Council (NAC) in 2015. The College falls in Grade B unlike its junior cousin in Baramulla which falls in Grade A, making it financially independent.
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( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

January 23, 2023