Thrust on quality, govt stirs school education system up
› Changes are being made without proper groundwork or understanding of implications. Preprimary classes are a positive step, but not without teachers and proper infrastructure. DALJIT SINGH CHEEMA, former education minister
CHANDIGARH: The Congress government in Punjab in its first year has shaken the school education system up having introduced rationalisation of teachers, performance-linked online transfers, separate teacher cadre for border areas, pre-primary classes, English as a medium of instruction besides ordering a crackdown on education mafia promoting mass copying in board examinations.
And the list goes on.
The majority of 22 lakh children enrolled in the 19,500-odd governmentrun schools come from disadvantaged and poor sections of the society.
Also, their learning ability has been a matter of concern.
A nationwide assessment – the National Achievement Survey conducted by the Union human resource development ministry to evaluate the competency level in elementary classes – reported poor performance by students of Classes 3, 5 and 8 in mathematics and science, putting Punjab among the states in bottom half. To blame are teacher absenteeism, imbalance in deployment, non-availability of books and lack of teaching-learning environment.
“There is a need to stem the rot and streamline the system,” said a department who did not want to be named. While a learning enhancement programme named ‘Padho Punjab Padhao Punjab’ has been launched for primary and middle levels to improve learning levels of the students, teacher rationalisation and transfer policy were approved last week.
“The priority is to implement all these changes and initiatives expeditiously to improve the quality of education,” said school education secretary Krishan Kumar. However, the implementation challenges are huge. There are already rumblings of discontent within the politically well-connected lobbies of teachers and private school owners.
Government Teachers’ Union state president Sukhwinder Chahal said the government actions are cosmetic in nature and have nothing to do with quality education. “Proposed closure of 800 schools, shifting of language teachers, transfers all through the year and failure to provide free books to students do not augur well,” he said.
The opposition parties also do not seem to agree with all the changes. Shirmani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Daljit Singh Cheema, who was education minister in previous Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) regime, said the new government has upset the system.
“Changes are being made without proper groundwork or understanding of implications. Pre-primary classes are a positive step, but not without teachers and proper infrastructure. Separate sections for English medium will disrupt things. All this is happening when no books or uniforms were given to children. They need to take care of these things first,” he said.
The school education department has had to defer or drop its moves to close down 800 primary schools having less than 20 students and ban on deployment of teachers above 50 years in girls’ schools following opposition from teachers’ unions and opposition parties. Also, the department does not need to rush with new initiatives.