Prof Javed Mughal
The recent bugle that sounded regarding the admission of the wards of Govt. employees into Govt. schools and Colleges is the most encouraging insinuation from the corridors of the Education Ministry for not only the Govt. employees but the common masses as well. The Minister for Education is although plying on a gravel path but is sure to get upon the hill-top of success if continues with the same unswerving courage and un-dangling enthusiasm to bring about a cataclysmic change in this old, ailing and the derailed system of education. Not only employees but all the stake-holder parents in fact aspire to send their wards to the Govt. institutions avoiding unnecessary expenditures on the impractical pomp and show of these private schools and colleges.
The intellectual maturity, ethical orientation and moral grooming that normally happen to be a quintessence of educational arena which our ancestors, down the centuries, have ascribed to the pedestals of schools and colleges are quite missing from the current English medium schools and academies. Whereas in Govt. institutions, we do find all these properties in a student but here we get dejected on finding no sound system of imparting knowledge to the students and the absence of a cult of infusing competitive spirit in them. I, being a close observer of all that is going on in privately manipulated institutions, bear a testimony to the fact that our children despite being taught in highly smart class-rooms, made computer-literate and excellent in extra-mural activities don’t seem to be heading towards a safe and secure future. Sometimes I feel that we, the parents, are deliberately propelling our upcoming generation into the abyss of never-ending dejection and despair by putting them into these personally managed alma maters where our tiny tots are simply transformed into the mere mechanical entities having no soul pulsating in them for the very simple reason that most of the school runners do not know even alphabet of academics and hence possess no logical vision and practical mission. Sometimes by selling small notes-books, content courses, uniforms, edible items, date sheets, I-Cards and so on, the private schools have almost ceased to be the educational institutions and instead stand developed into the shopping malls where education is one of the items to be sold and purchased.
Despite all these loopholes, the parents send their children to these schools for a very solid and stark reason and i.e. in Govt. Schools the sense of responsibility, accountability, transparency, honesty, enthusiasm, attachment with the innocent students, a mindset of earning legitimate livelihood and justifying a teacher’s status and stature in the society are not even distantly discernible in our Govt. teachers. Equally irresponsible are the officers in chairs to monitor and look after the department of education. They have openly fixed the rates of transfers and adjustments caring not even a fig for the maintenance of educational standard. The school buildings in most of the areas are worse than stables, sheds and kennels having no toilets, no desks for the students, no adequate teachers. In such unhygienic cells the innocent little students are incarcerated and often used as bonded labourers by unscrupulous teachers.
The permanent Govt. teachers in most of the cases are on the choiced-deputations and attachments (being in league with their corrupt bosses), teaching at tuition centers, running shops in the market but not doing their duties which they are highly paid for. In private schools, our children do get something although in exchange for heavy and exploitative fees they charge but in Govt. schools our teachers despite having fat salaries and healthy perks are the worthless fellows. They have created an environment of total disappointment in the Govt. schools and the worst like incompetence, routine negligence, bribery, harassments and multifarious exploitations is attributed to the teachers of the Govt. schools. The heart-rending spectacle of the Govt. schools, their teachers and the concerned officers and even the entire education department from first to the last rung of the administration is enough to invite the concern of all those who have a human heart to feel and a rational mind to think.
The Govt. must pay its attention to the seamy side of the educational system and manage to remove all the trash and filth dumped on the image of these schools first, create an academic atmosphere conducive to the amelioration of the young generation and then the despotic orders compelling the employees to put their children into Govt. schools should be conceived and issued. The current plight of the Govt. schools is extremely deplorable and hence are not fit for our children and we can’t afford to allow our wards and children to be wasted in the Govt. schools this way. Had the academic conditions of these schools been even a bit better, the parents would automatically have preferred the admission in these institutions to that in private schools and today the Govt. would not have happened to express its coercive intentions. The ultimate step which the Govt. has to take and the assurance that has to be given to the parents is that the Govt. schools shall be exonerated from the shackles of the nonchalant teachers and eliminate the anti-student approach from within these highly paid Govt. teachers including all lecturers and the professors as well and a sense of attachment with the innocent students and accountability to the system and their conscience shall be infused in them.
Before issuing autocratic dictates to the Govt. employee-parents to admit their children in Govt. schools, the Govt. must come forward first of all to equip the long ignored and under-developed schools with all the required infra-structure and adequate staff. The moment the dismal picture of Govt. educational sector gets desirably better, not only the govt. employees but all ranks and files will happily send their wards to the Govt. institutions. But before bringing about a metamorphic transformation in the govt. managed educational domain, uprooting children from the private schools and sending them to the other side will not be less than a suicidal step for the parents and the students as well and to compel these parents to do so shall be tantamount to a sort of mental torture on them by the Govt. It will involve a few months period to reinstate the academic culture in the Govt. schools and to update them with all the needed infra-structure (and in doing so the Govt. is hereby assured the absolute cooperation of the public) and shortly afterwards these institutions will be flooded with the students.
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel