Education Reformation: The prerequisites thereof
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Education Reformation: The prerequisites thereof

As envisaged in the NEP 2020, the teachers should be subjected to continuous professional development so as to ensure competency based teaching and learning process rather than content or rote memory based teaching-learning

Post by on Wednesday, December 1, 2021

First slide

The education department of J&K Union Territory has been in limelight for the past couple of weeks. The special enrolment drives, Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor’s statement of merging more 2000 schools, The Principal Secretary education B.K Singh’s announcement that schools should have at least 15 students to remain functional give ample proofs that reformation of school education in terms of total enrolment, pupil teacher ratio and quality provisions is at the anvil. In the same context this author feels it worthwhile to put forward following few suggestions for consideration at the appropriate level:

(1) The Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) 2019-20 had depicted a grim picture of the school education department in terms of Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) and availability of facilities for students in government schools across J&K. Against set norms of 30:1, 35:1 and 40:1 government schools have 15:1, 8:1 and 12:1 PTR in Primary, Upper Primary and Secondary Schools respectively. This grim picture of disproportionality coupled with set norm of only 2 teachers for Primary Schools and 6 teachers for Middle schools demands complete overhauling so that on the one hand PTR is increased and on the other hand minimum 4-5 and 8-10 teachers are provided for Primary and Middle schools respectively. For this end the department need take three fold steps:                                                                                                                                                                  

·         Rationalization: Rationalise the teachers on the basis of enrolment with special focus on transferring the teachers along with post to the schools with comparatively higher enrolment.

·         Merging: Wherever feasible and possible, merge the schools having low enrolment, low PTR and insufficient infrastructure and accommodation, and shift the surplus teachers to the schools where merging is not possible. The merging should be along with the establishment, sanctioned posts and infrastructure so as to have one individual school from the merged schools. This may on one hand spare the extra teachers for posting at needy places and on the other hand ensure maximum utilization of the resources.

·         Do away with the process of clubbing the schools. Currently in J&K UT 4133 schools are clubbed together. In clubbing, schools are made to work together but retain their individual identity by maintaining the separate records. This not only wastes the man power resources available but also casts a shadow on the efficiency of the system. In enrolment drives for example, teachers apparently from the same school have been witnessed to play tug of war over the new admissions. To grab the share of admission for the sake of record keeping and maintaining their individuality the teachers from the so called clubbed schools had to compete within themselves to grab the share of admissions. Let this clubbing be quashed and the clubbed schools be formally merged together completely keeping in view the staff and infrastructure strength as suggested above. This may result in collective effort vis-à-vis development of the school.

(2) In prevailing system and as per SSA norms, we have 3 rooms for a Primary school and not more than six rooms for a Middle school. In this system teachers are made to club the classes and the same, on one hand, results in compromising with the learning outcomes set for a particular grade and on the other hand leaves the other teachers to sit idle. Let there be one classroom for each grade besides an office room. This demands minimum 7 classrooms for a primary school and 9 classrooms for a middle school. To have efficient use of the land, available or acquired, for constructing new buildings let there be provision of 2 to 3 storey buildings with the facility of ramps to make them barrier free for CWSN. Pooling the resources through merging can have least extra burden on state exchequer in this regard.

(3) Teachers, being the most crucial part of the system, need to be made vibrant and should have sufficient degree of competition among themselves. In this regard, it is proposed to have departmental examination and on the basis of merit obtained in the same, the teachers should be accordingly incentivized in terms of promotions, placements and rewards. To avoid home sickness and boredom teachers should necessarily be transferred at least after 2 years, if not earlier. Primary school teaching, being most crucial should have teachers who are specially trained, more skilful and competent. For the same purpose the accomplishments of primary school teachers should be specially incentivized, rewarded and endorsed.

(4) As envisaged in the NEP 2020, the teachers should be subjected to continuous professional development so as to ensure competency based teaching and learning process rather than content or rote memory based teaching learning. To this end, trainings workshops and orientation courses should be conducted in a time bound manner. Besides that, there should be a provision of exposing teachers to the teaching and learning culture in in the reputed schools in other parts of the country.

(5) Since the department is facing dearth of subject specific teachers and lecturers at secondary and higher secondary level respectively. The practice of engaging contractual, adhoc and academic arrangement staff for the same has proven to be a failure because the engaged staff lacked accountability and the requisite experience. Now the department has started using the practice of utilization of services of teachers working in schools in these High and Higher Secondary schools. Let the department come up with a strategy and streamline this system of using the services of teachers on ‘need based pattern’. Instead of pick and choose practice for these posts let the department go for a separate qualifying examination of the interested subject specific in-service teachers and on the basis of merit obtained post the teachers in these schools.

(6) To make learning environment attractive, the schools should be face lifted and provided with playgrounds, recreational facilities, tinkering labs, drinking water and toilet facilities.

(7) Community ownership of government schools plays a vital role in ensuring quality education in the same. The ownership can hardly be expected if the schools fail to compete with the locally available private schools. For that very purpose the authorities at the helm of affairs need to take all the steps for ensuring quality provisions in the government schools so that the general public is attracted to admit their wards in these schools. Trust building on government schools is one of the prerequisite that can ensure community ownership of the schools. Community ownership, when achieved, will in itself motivate and mobilize people to prefer government for their wards.

The reformation process that the authorities at the helm of affairs have envisaged need to be taken seriously by all the stake holders including parents,teachers and administrative officers to achieve the desired results.

 

(The Author is Teacher by profession and is a Columnist. He can be reached on: abuaalim@gmail.com)

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