The contrast couldn’t be more telling. While the people of J&K ushered 2024 with the good news that students of Army Goodwill School in Wuzur, Anantnag had won two gold medals in the prestigious all-India innovative projects development competition, those living across the Line of Control [LoC] were out on the streets in the bitter cold, protesting against the pathetic state of education in Pakistan occupied J&K [PoJK].

Army Goodwill schools which have played an important role in changing the union territory of J&K’s educational landscape have an interesting history. The advent of terrorism in the nineties turned the lives of those living in J&K upside down and while the violence that ensued grabbed the headlines, few outsiders were aware that education was one of the worst hit sectors.

Before Pakistan army’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] sent Kalashnikov wielding youth into Kashmir Valley to create mayhem in the garb of a so called “freedom struggle,” was the epitome of communal harmony and traditionally it was the educated section of the Kashmiri Pandit [KP] community that formed the backbone of the education system.

However, widespread targeted killing of KPs by ISI sponsored terrorists resulted in the exodus of this minority indigenous community from the Kashmir Valley in........

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