“We have to clearly focus on infrastructure development for
educational administration, achievement levels in schools,
overall improvement. Our current focus thus is to look at varied intricate aspects of infrastructure and in terms of education, higher education schools,” he said.
financial issues, decentralisation and community ownership, review of State Education Act, rationalization of teacher deployment and recruitment of teachers, monitoring and evaluation, status of education of girls, SC/ST and disadvantaged groups, policy regarding private schools and ECCE. Many States have already carried out several changes
Noting that the situation of primary schools is alarming and enrolment is coming down primarily due to the sudden growth of private schools, he indicates that the parent’s focus is going towards English medium and they also think that government level primary school teachers are not up to the required level of their expectation. “It is a perception that the government teachers are not up to the mark. We have several good teachers across the state and the other perception of them not being paid at par with private schools is also wrong. Going by the recent pay commission, government school teachers are paid much higher salaries than private teachers,” he stated. Commenting on the few recent disruptions in proper running of schools in the twin cities due to the fee structure, he states that a committee has been appointed to look into the same and G.O has also been issued in regards to not exploit fees as there is some celing to it. “But private schools collect other fees like Building structure fees, infrastructure fess, etc. But then there are Supreme Court guidelines too and the controlling of fees is a little tough there,” he said. Pointing towards the rural-urban imbalance, Varaprasad Reddy notes that the vast difference has resulted in a huge misplacement of education. “We are trying to take necessary steps to reduce the imbalance and the government from its side is also trying to get new schemes to reach the rural areas to reduce the divide. We are also recruiting quality teachers in government schools and the situation is a bit improved than before,” he said.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan As part of the SSA, the central and the State governments will undertake reforms in order to improve efficiency of the delivery system. The states will have to make an objective assessment of their prevalent education system including
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to improve the delivery system for elementary education. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is based on the premise that financing of elementary education interventions has to be sustainable. This calls for a long -term perspective on financial partnership between the Central and the State governments. The programme calls for community ownership of school-based interventions through effective decentralisation. This will be augmented by involvement of women's groups, VEC members and members of Panchayati Raj institutions. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan assigns greatest importance to the preparatory activities as these have been conceived as a necessary condition for quality implementation of the programme. Systematic mobilization of the community and creation of an effective system of decentralised decision making are part of the preparatory activities. A number of steps have already been taken in many states and it is expected that the State/ UTs which have not yet decentralised powers to Village Education Committees/ Panchayats/ Urban local bodies, would do so as a part of the preparation for implementing Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Through a participatory process a core planning team will be constituted in each village at the habitation level including selected VEC members, selected community leaders, NGO representatives, Head Master, selected teachers and some selected parents, ensuring participation of women as well as persons from the deprived communities. Parents of children with special needs may be included in the team. The selection of this team is very critical for effective planning.
December-2009