In Kashmir’s elite private schools, the Parent-Teacher Meeting has been quietly hijacked. Parents arrive expecting insight into their child’s growth. They leave clutching fee reminder slips. The architecture mirrors 1990s ration queues: half-days sacrificed, corridors endured, all for a breathless 180-second exchange — generic observations delivered under the accounts department’s shadow. Teachers, conscripted as debt-recovery officers, process forty families per session. The child — education’s entire purpose — disappears from the conversation. Learning gaps, emotional distress, hidden talent: all surrendered to pending balances. The hypocrisy is sharp. Schools advertising AI curricula and smart classrooms revert to personal embarrassment as their preferred fee-extraction tool — because shame before an educator collects what digital reminders cannot. This is not pedagogy. It is management wearing a gown. The remedy is simple: decouple finances from academics entirely. Fee communications belong on digital portals. PTMs belong to children. The Department of Education must act — one enforceable circular mandating academic-only PTMs, individual fifteen-minute slots, and compliance audits tied to school licensing. Kashmir’s families pay premium fees. They deserve professional dignity in return. The kerosene queue mentality belongs in the 1990s. Every PTM that buries it remains, at its core, a well-dressed toll booth.
