The Fight Over Pages

Officials want every child to read the same worn out books. Private schools want kids ready for tomorrow. The losers are the children.

- Tariq Maqbool

In a first-grade class in Srinagar, little kids sing the ABC lesson from a book printed in 2011. The pages are yellow and the cover is held on by tape.

A few miles away, another class learns the same letters by making an airplane fly across a bright screen.

The state's answer to that joy is a letter that says, “Stop or we will close you down.”

Kashmir is fighting over books, but the real fight is over time.

Should 2.2 million students move forward, or stay stuck in the past?

The education department says all schools must use only JKBOSE books. Schools that refuse can lose their licence.

Leaders call the plan “one book for all.” Parents who have seen both kinds of books call it a trap.

Let's look inside the two sets of pages.

The JKBOSE math book for Class 3 shows a calculator as a rare lab tool. It never asks kids to spot a pattern or build a model.