JK govt to counter student protests by promoting NCC

To counter the ongoing protests by students and to prevent indoctrination of Kashmiri youth, Jammu & Kashmir government has decided to promote the National Cadet Course (NCC) “to the fullest” at schools and colleges in the restive region.

Sources said unnerved by the continued protests by student community, mainly at  government colleges and higher secondary schools in Kashmir, the Education department recently held a high-level meeting where it was resolved that activities like NCC can help counter the “indoctrination of youth towards stone pelting."

Officials said NCC wing is scheduled to be made functional in all the high and higher secondary schools in Srinagar this year where students will be trained in some healthy activities, including swimming, climbing, para-gliding and firing. Sources said the education department looks ahead to enrol 50,000 scouts in the ongoing academic year.

They said the government looks ahead to make NCC lucrative, through special training programs and incentives,  while stress would be laid on fresh admissions for the Junior Division training program.

While NCC wings will be “revived” at the SP Higher Secondary and MP Higher Secondary Schools in Srinagar in the coming days, the schools which don’t have NCC wing will also be offered the services.

“Our basic aim is to attract more and more students towards the NCC, so we will be offering some incentives to the concerned,” a senior official in the Education Department told DH.

He said the government is consolidating the profile of the NCC-trained teachers who would be transferred to various schools mainly in the coming days. "The Education Minister Syed Altaf Bukhari has found the idea interesting and asked the Higher Education department to promote NCC at the colleges for the new admissions," the official added.

Over a month the government has been working to overcome student protests, which till now have declined to die down. Students in school uniforms have clashed increasingly with security forces across Kashmir after police raided a college in the southern town of Pulwama on April 15. More than 200 students have been injured in the subsequent clashes.