Guwahati, April 25: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday underlined the need for corrective measures in three districts – West Karbi Anglong, Chirang and Karbi Anglong – where the academic standards and performance of students have not improved, as reflected in the results of ‘Gunostav’.
‘Gunostav’ is a comprehensive evaluation of the education system in Assam that was initiated in 2017.
Declaring the results of ‘Gunotsav 2023’ here on Tuesday, the chief minister, expressed concern over the fact that going by the indicators of Gunotsav, the educational standards in West Karbi Anglong, Chirang and Karbi Anglong, which have been placed in the bottom of the list, have not improved over the years.
“I would request the state education department to initiate corrective measures needed in these three districts and conduct a micro analysis into the grey areas and ascertain why these districts have been constantly in the bottom of the list over the past four years,” Sarma said.
“External evaluators need to be engaged in the next three months in schools of districts that have performed poorly in order to find out reasons for the poor results. These schools need constant mentoring. Deputy commissioners and additional DCs can visit the schools from time to time. An officer can be permanently attached to these schools,” the chief minister said.
Notably, Gunotsav covers various parameters such as teacher-student ratio, infrastructure, teaching methodologies and student performance.
Sivasagar district bagged the first position yet again, followed by Charaideo and Golaghat respectively in “Gunotsav 2023,” which was held from January 18 to February 18.
It may be mentioned that 44,531 government schools enrolling 41,35,143 students were evaluated in Gunotsav 2023.
Throwing insights into the overall improvement in academic standards over the years, the chief minister said that over 75 percent of schools were placed in the A-plus and A grade category this year, compared to 46 percent in 2022.
While only 6,000 schools had secured A-plus grades (86.50 percent and above) in 2017, when Gunotsav was incepted, he said about 10,000 schools secured A-Plus grades in 2018.
“From 4841 schools securing A-plus grades in the post-COVID situation in 2022, to as many as 11,886 schools securing A-plus grades this year implies that a peaceful, agitation-free, disciplined environment can lift academic standards and improve quality of education,” the chief minister said.
A financial aid of Rs 25,000 was announced to all schools securing A-plus grades to utilise the amount for improvement in infrastructure deficiency, if any.
Sarma further pointed out that all the 41,35,143 students who are enrolled in government schools of the state have a unique identity, which is a great achievement of Gunotsav.
“This implies that there is no scope of a name of one particular student appearing twice or thrice, which was the case earlier, as there was an unfair bid made to increase the number of students for making schools eligible for provincialisation, or to misuse funds of schemes meant for mid-day meals and students’ uniform,” the chief minister said.
“Besides, the positive impact of Gunotsav is now visible in the remotest areas, as everyone from the top to the bottom are eagerly participating in the programme, despite earlier attempts by a section of people who tried to provoke them against participation in the programme. But this part has been streamlined now and Gunotsav is now an integral part of the academic calendar and has proved that good things and positivity always win in the end,” he said.
Lauding Sivasagar district for consistently securing the first place in Gunotsav, he said now there are long queues to government schools in the district, indicating the improvement of quality of education in these schools.
“Here, given that 41.35 lakh students have been retained in government schools, which is an encouraging sign, I would request the education minister to take measures to carry out a study to ascertain the ratio of students in government schools vis-a-vis private schools, which I reckon would be in the 80: 20 ratio or thereabouts,” he said.