Kargil students want English medium school

BATALIK, Kargil: To keep pace with rest of the country and compete with the world outside, students in Batalik, a nondescript village in Jammu and Kashmir rattled by Pakistani shelling during the Kargil war, want an English medium school which they say can hone their talents.

"We want an English medium public school here so that we can compete with rest of the state. We have talent to become officers, but want opportunity and right kind of English medium education," Kahro Nisha, a class eight student, says.

Echoing her views, Arif Ali, a class nine student, says, "English is an universal language. English medium schooling can help children to compete with the world outside."

Ali rues that the village has a primary school only. Both Khora and Ali travel 30 km everyday to attend their classes at government middle school in a neighboring village.

"After matriculation, I will have go to Kargil town, 70 km from here to attend my higher secondary classes and then to Srinagar for higher education," he says.

"When I went to Srinagar and Jammu last year, I realized that we were living in some other world. We do not have any good educational institutes to hone our talent," Kahro says.

"Even though we get backward certificates through which we get preference in government jobs, but what is the use when most children in the area are class five dropouts due to lack of schools," Nadir Hussain, a villager, says.

Batalik is the last village of Kargil sector on Indo-Pak border. It has a population of over 1,500.

-PTI