By ED Nongsiang
The right of children to free and compulsory education Act, 2009, an act of parliament has already received the assent of the President on the 26th August 2009 and it is learnt that the state government is set to implement it by the year 2013. While welcoming such reforms and radical changes in the nation’s education scenario as a positive step, the state of affairs in the elementary education of our state has left one sceptical on the success of the RTE unless our state is ready to accept and execute the law of the land in letter and spirit.
The pathetic state of affairs of education at the elementary level in our state is responsible for the high drop out rate at the secondary level and also for the low pass percentage at the SSLC examinations which lingers on at 46%. When a strong foundation at the primary level is not laid, the students proceeding to the secondary and higher secondary levels find themselves unable to cope up with the teachings and syllabi in the higher classes, hence to avoid embarrassments, humiliations and the pressure from parents and teachers, the best option is to drop out or even if they continue they add to the high percentage of failures at the SSLC examinations.
With the exception of urban schools, many of the primary schools in rural areas are taught by unqualified and untrained teachers; there are cases especially in government run and government aided schools where teachers hardly teach for an hour in a day whereas the schedule serial no. 3 and 4 of the RTE norms states that a minimum of forty five teaching hours per week and a minimum number of two hundred to two hundred and twenty working days in an academic year should be taught to students by the teachers.
Teachers of these errant schools are also found to engage substitutes to take their classes throughout the academic year. Students from these types of schools hardly learn simple arithmetic such as addition and subtraction or even the alphabets after completing their elementary education. It is shocking but true that ghost schools still exist in many parts of our state.
Supervision and inspection of schools have been done away with by the District School Education Officers (Inspectors of Schools) and the Sub-Divisional School Education Officers (D.I.S) as these offices are understaffed and can hardly complete their routine office works. To some extent the implementation of the Central Scheme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has improved the literacy rate in our State and the Cluster Resource Persons(CRP) in charge of CRCs have partially performed the supervision and inspection part at the elementary level, but proper co-ordination and implementation is still lacking . Is our state ready to take over when the extended period of the scheme (SSA) from 2010 will end in 2012? It is up to the wisdom and sincerity of the State government to convince the Centre on its continuation or to ask for an alternative scheme for the purpose.
Article 16 of the RTE states that ‘No Child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till completion of elementary education’. With the not so encouraging state of affairs in elementary education, if the above article of the RTE is strictly followed, our state will produce incompetent students at the secondary and higher secondary levels, incapable of competing or even be eligible for higher studies , coupled with a high percentage of drop outs, decreasing the pass percentage etc.
The step taken by the government to select and send the elementary school teachers for higher studies and training and the introduction of voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) is to be appreciated. We hope it will bring some improvements in the teachings and learning process at elementary levels.
The RTE Act in Chapter V article 29 (2) has directed the Academic authority to take into consideration the following guidelines for framing the curriculum in elementary education. (1)Conformity with the values enshrined in the Constitution (2) All round development of the children (3) Building up child’s knowledge, potentiality and talent (4) Development of physical and mental abilities to the fullest extent (5) Learning through activities discovery and exploration in a child friendly and child-centered manner 6) Medium of instructions shall, as far as practicable, be in the child’s mother tongue(7)Making the child free of fear, trauma and anxiety and helping the child to express views freely (8) Comprehensive and continuous evaluation of child’s, understanding of knowledge and his or her ability to apply the same.
To be able to do justice to the curriculum as specified in the chapter V, article 29 (2) of the RTE, Pupil- teacher ratio of 60: 2 as given in the schedule of norms and standards for a school should be followed and regular in-training/orientation courses for teachers should be introduced. Besides, a teacher or a person who would like to take teaching as a career should consider it as a vocation rather than a profession, a call to dedicate and commit oneself to a cause or a mission, not merely as a duty to be completed to compensate for the salary paid to him/her.
Let me also comment on two important issues that trouble the minds of students and parents of our state. After almost 40 years of statehood, with the exception of NEIGRIHMS where the State quota is only nine in all, no other state engineering or medical college exists in our State. Parents whose children desire to pursue engineering or medical studies and who are not included in the quota list of the government have to shell out huge amounts as donations to get admission in colleges in other states or outside the country besides other expenditure.
Those who wish to study B.Sc(Agri.), B.Sc(Nursing) , B.Pharm., BDS etc have to seek admission in other states as there are no institutes in our state offering such courses of study. We wish that the government seriously takes this up and initiates the setting up of more technical, professional and vocational institutes or at least facilitate the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) for the establishment of such institutes.
Looking at the ‘Best of five policy’ implemented by the MBOSE with effect from the SSLC Examination 2011, it was a policy introduced unilaterally and hurriedly without taking into consideration the welfare of all categories of students for the sake of raising the pass percentage that was a failure as seen in the SSLC results 2011. Modification of the policy is urgently needed and it should be in consultation with all stakeholders, including teachers, parents and students.
(The writer is a senior teacher at H. Elias Memorial Higher Secondary School, Nongshiliang, Nongthymmai)