Prof Kali Dass
Without Education; mind is lost; with the loss of mind, morality is lost; with morality loss; mobility is lost; with mobility loss; one becomes economically weak and down fall starts.
The education sector in the State is passing through a critical stage at this time. There have been many Government orders and decisions which have created a storm among the teacher community, students, parents and other stake-holders.
As per the given data of Educational Institutions, there are 95 Govt Degree Colleges and 192 Pvt Colleges, 750 Govt & Pvt Higher Secondary Schools and about 25200 schools (No bifurcation) and about 2250 small and medium coaching centres.
Inspite of more investments in Govt institutions, results are not on expected lines. There are many reasons for the present mess in the education sector.
The first and the biggest reason is the shortage of the teaching faculty. Many Degree Colleges, Govt High Secondary Schools and other schools of different levels do not have the requisite granted strength of the faculty especially in the inaccessible areas. Contractual arrangement teachers if appointed with very small amount of salary cannot do justice and they do not take pains because they do not have any responsibility. At far flung areas, Educational institutions are without teachers and when teacher is not in the class, how can we improve the teaching-learning system for the students. The zero percent results shown by some schools may be related to this factor and this needs to be investigated property.
The other reason is that there is no check by the Zonal Educational Officers, the basic controlling authorities who are supposed to visit the institutions for checking the truancy of teachers on one side and what teachers teach to the students on the other side. Many students who are declared pass in 8th class on a very casual criteria do not know their subjects well and seek admissions in Higher Secondary/High Schools where teachers become helpless to teach them in 9th and 10th Class. There needs a great check by frequent visits by the Zonal Education Officers, who do not do their basic duties.
Primary education in far flung areas too faces the same problems. Middle standard classes depend upon the Primary classes, High/Higher classes depend upon middle standard classes. When there is a lot of gap between their education standard, the ultimate results are not achieved. Sometime, we wonder when a twelfth class students fails to write an application even in his / her mother language viz. hindi or Urdu.
Many times we compare the results of the Govt institutions with those of Private Institutions, but we never go deep into the mechanism adopted by the Private Educational Institutions. Let us focus on the working of the Private institutions. If Pvt Educational Institutions provide good teaching-learning system, then why all the students right from Nursery to 12th Calss take Private tuitions. If it is so, it is a glaring example that private institutions promise only good classrooms and nothing else. They have opened their business in their big schools from where you have to purchase books, and uniforms. You have to pay for transportation system, and also have to pay other charges on the name of picinics, examination funds etc. Some of the private institutions if paid surprise visits by the higher officers of the Educational Department you will find students of higher classes missing in their classes. All such students study at their own and have only got admissions for Board examination through these institutions and if such students shine they (Pvt schools) claim for having better education system which is in reality a false propaganda.
To uplift the teaching-learning system in the schools total pvt tuitions should be banned. Ban on Govt teacher pvt tuitions is one of the good steps but why not a blanket on the Pvt tuitions. Not even a single student of Pvt institution is with out tuition, Govt and educationists must think over it.
Besides, parents of the students must ask the teachers about their wards in Govt schools as well as in the pvt schools. One more thing is to be noted is that when a pvt school has got lot of money throughout the 10 to 12 years then why the weak students are forced to sit the Board examination in the pvt capacity Does not this reflect the weakness of the Pvt institutions and one Govt. Parents do not care but economically poor parents suffer.
Govt should stop privatisation of education system. Recently fee- free girl education has been started by the Govt. But when faculty members are not in the institutions and if they are there, no body checks their performance. Education system breaks down.
There is need to take some drastic measures if standard of education is to be improved.
(The author is General Secretary All India Backward Classes (Regd) School.)
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