A seasonal classroom can bring education within reach of a child living on a summer pasture. But what happens to that child’s learning when the family moves again? For Gujjar–Bakarwal families in Jammu and Kashmir, the school year stretches across winter settlements, mountain journeys and summer grazing grounds. Children may attend a regular school for part of the year and a seasonal centre for another. The difficulty lies in joining these periods of teaching. Without shared records and clear duties, the receiving teacher may have little idea of what a child has learned or missed.
My fieldwork in Pir Ki Gali and participation as a resource person at a national workshop on education among nomadic communities at Doongi Marg Meadow inform this argument. The question is how schools can accommodate pastoral movement while offering children the academic opportunities available to their peers in settled households.
Gujjars and Bakarwals are Scheduled Tribe communities, but their patterns of settlement and movement differ. Many Gujjar households are settled or semi-settled; Bakarwal livelihoods are closely associated with sheep and goat rearing and seasonal migration. Mobile schools were conceived to accompany migrating groups, while seasonal centres teach at temporary encampments.
Kavita Suri’s 2014 study provides historical context for these arrangements. A classroom at the summer destination, however, does not necessarily cover the journey or tell a winter school how to recognise work completed elsewhere. In the mountains, a school that appears nearby on a map may be difficult to reach. Steep slopes, scattered pastures and changing weather affect children’s journeys and the deployment of teachers.
Jammu and Kashmir has made substantial efforts to reach these children. The Ministry of Education’s 2021 Samagra Shiksha appraisal records report educational facilities for 32,544 migratory children through 1,521 seasonal centres, supported by 1,748 educational volunteers, during 2020–21. These are historical figures for reported provision; they do not establish current coverage or learning outcomes. They show the scale of the effort, but cannot tell us whether children were prepared for their next class or whether their assessments were recognised when they returned.
A school leadership module hosted by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration describes delayed engagement of volunteers, inadequate shelter and insufficient materials among the problems affecting seasonal centres in Kupwara. Conditions elsewhere may differ. Even so, these difficulties show why counting centres is only a starting point. When did teaching begin? How many days of instruction did children receive? What could they read or work out by the end? A centre may appear in the annual figures despite losing weeks of teaching to a delayed appointment.
Pastoral families move according to grazing conditions, water, snow and the needs of their animals. School admissions and examinations follow a different calendar. Caroline Dyer and Vijitha Rajan’s 2023 study explains how schooling in South Asia favours settled populations and discounts learning within mobile livelihoods. Families should not have to give up a viable livelihood for their children to attend school. Nor should an adapted timetable leave children with fewer opportunities to gain recognised qualifications. Flexibility has to work beyond primary enrolment, through to further study.
A designated regular school could take responsibility for coordinating each child’s learning across the year. Before the family leaves, the school would link the child with a seasonal centre and pass on a short record of assessed skills, unfinished lessons and any support needed. The centre would teach, assess and update the record. On the child’s return, the regular school would use it to decide where teaching should resume. District education authorities would designate officials to handle missed transfers and coordination across zones and districts. These arrangements need to be settled before migration; families should not have to negotiate them at every stop.
Where digital connectivity is unreliable, a paper record is still useful. It should help the next teacher answer an ordinary classroom question: where should this child begin? Repeating lessons already mastered wastes time, while moving ahead without addressing missed work can leave a pupil struggling. A simple assessment format agreed by regular schools and seasonal centres would make the record easier to use. Teachers also need time to read it and provide the support it identifies.
There is a useful comparison in Caroline Dyer and Emily Echessa’s 2019 study of networked schooling in Ethiopia. It examines how schools can work together to accommodate pastoral learners’ movement, while acknowledging the resources this requires. Jammu and Kashmir could pilot such links between winter schools and seasonal centres along established migration routes.
The practical demands would remain: dependable payment for teachers, accommodation, preparation for mixed-age classes and academic support. Better coordination will achieve little without staff, teaching materials and safe facilities. A pilot should follow children through a complete migration cycle and examine their learning and progress after each move.
What children bring to the classroom matters too. Afreen Gani Faridi’s 2026 analysis in Third World Quarterly examines education policy’s neglect of Bakarwal livelihoods and ecological knowledge. Gojri stories can support literacy; migration routes can help teach geography; livestock care can provide a starting point for biology.
These connections can make lessons intelligible while introducing children to wider knowledge. Families should have a say in where centres are located and when they operate, with particular attention to the views and safety of mothers and girls. Respect for pastoral life must leave room for children to choose other occupations and pursue secondary education. On returning from the pasture, children’s next lesson should depend on what they have learned, not on which institution last counted their attendance.
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