The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly passed the Private Universities Bill on April 4, 2026, with the usual fanfare about progress and opportunity. 

The legislation promises regulatory oversight, UGC compliance, student protections, and a ban on capitation fees. It sounds thorough, promising, and like exactly the kind of measured step a responsible government should take.

It also sounds eerily familiar.

Every few years, Kashmir policymakers discover that young people are leaving. They note that families drain life savings to send children to universities in Delhi, Chandigarh, or Bangalore. They observe that government colleges host more pigeons than students. 

They draft bills, hold press conferences, and declare that change has arrived. Then the headlines fade, the classrooms stay empty, and another batch of eighteen-year-olds buys one-way tickets out of Srinagar.

This bill risks becoming another well-intentioned paper promise unless leaders confront the harder truth: private universities will flourish only if public education stops failing so completely.

The numbers tell a story of collapse dressed up as stability. 

Official reports boast that 26.17 lakh students enrolled across J&K schools in 2024-25. Girls’ enrollment ratios look impressive on paper. Dropout rates appear manageable. 

These statistics travel well in Delhi briefing rooms. But on the ground, the picture looks different. 

Over 3,000 government schools run with ten or fewer students. Some have zero. Teachers still draw salaries at these ghost institutions, costing taxpayers over ₹13,800 crore rupees. 

Since 2019, authorities have closed or merged 1,732 schools, mostly in the Jammu division. 

In higher education, two government degree colleges have no students at all. Five host fewer than twenty, eight have fewer than thirty, and twenty-four struggle to reach one hundred enrollees.

Parents know what the data reveals. 

They watch their neighbours sell jewelry to afford private school fees. They see........

© Kashmir Observer