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Improve existing schools
Online coaching for entrance tests
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Improve existing schools
EXCLUDING the privately-owned aided and non-aided schools, there are about 13,000 primary schools, 2,400 middle schools, 1,740 high schools and about 1,400 senior secondary schools in Punjab. With so many schools already in place, whether proposed Adarsh Schools in each district would be an effective preposition in revamping the school education scenario, is doubtful.
Though opening new schools is not a bad idea, the move is unlikely to fetch intended results unless the problems of the already existing schools are not examined and analysed in a holistic way. Thus, it is more important for the government to address the issues pertaining to quality in terms of knowledge and skills being imparted to the children. At the school level, major problems relate to adequate school infrastructure, pedagogy and the curriculum while at the level of teachers, it is the lack of commitment and competence and not-so-good service conditions. At the community level, apart from the ignorance and livelihood issues of the parents, there is a lack of faith and indifference towards the government-owned schools. By and large, all parents prefer private schools to government schools. In a study carried out by the writer in Moga district, there were more than two-fifth sampled rural primary schools and about half urban primary schools whose buildings required repairs. There were a little less than one-fifth primary schools without toilets and one-fourth without separate toilets for girls while an equal proportion did not even have a boundary wall. There were no playgrounds in more than half rural primary schools and three-fifth urban primary schools. Four-fifth rural primary schools and three-fifth urban primary schools did not have a library. Sadly enough, 5 per cent primary schools didn’t even have chalks, dusters and blackboards. Nearly one-third upper primary teachers expressed that the promotions were not given in time and more than half of these teachers said that hardworking teachers and devoted teachers are not appreciated at all. To help restore faith in government schools, there should be some effective mechanism for punishing those teachers who don’t take classes, don’t give and correct home work and those who don’t perform their in-house activities with devotion and commitment, the teachers said. The government should have a uniform transfer policy. About one-fifth teachers who were interview said that they were in the same school for more than 10 years, whereas a little less than one-fifth sampled teachers were in one school for six to nine years. About one-fifth teachers in primary schools and about one-third in upper primary schools were in the same school for more than 10 years. There is a huge gap between the sanctioned posts and the teachers-in-place in government schools, especially in rural areas. According to an estimate, as on today, there are about 13,000 vacancies of teachers lying vacant in Punjab. In Moga district, the gap between the sanctioned posts and the teachers-in-place consistently increased from 2002 to 2004. While the gap was a little over 6 per cent in 2002, it increased to over 10 per cent in 2003 and 23 per cent in 2004. This gap underlines a need to streamline the recruitment policy to solve this problem. The government should start the recruitments process immediately after a teacher retires. Schoolteachers should not be involved in non-academic activities like holding elections, doing surveys and other administrative duties. This can easily be avoided by devising some alternatives so that the teachers find enough time for school activities. At the community level, though there are institutions like Village Education Development Committees (VEDCs), Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) and PRIs for managing the school education system, unfortunately these institutions have not been able to perform an effective role towards ensuring community ownership and quality school education. The quality of education was last priority for VEDCs and PTAs in Moga. About one-fourth of the members did not even attend the meetings regularly. In urban areas, these bodies did not at all discuss the educational issues in their meetings. The issues that are discussed relate mainly to construction or repair or other such civil works. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), a flagship programme of the Centre, provides strategies for dealing with the problems in the school education system for achieving the broader goal of universalisation of elementary education. The thrust of the programme is on institutional development by the community-based monitoring system which ensures full transparency and accountability and put emphasis on quality through improved curriculum and effective teaching-learning methods. The data show that the SSA has been able to reduce the number of out of school children in our country from about 320 lakh in 2002-03 to 70.5 lakh in March 2006.The gender gap at the primary stage has reduced from 5.5 per cent in 2002-03 to 4.2 per cent in 2005-06. At the upper primary stage, this gap reduced from 10.7 per cent to 8.8 per cent. The gross dropout rate has declined from 39.03 per cent in 2001-02 to 28.49 per cent in 2004-05. For girls, the decline in dropout rate has been from 39.88 to 24.82 per cent. The SSA has so far been very successful in many states. Punjab should also make more rigorous efforts to ensure that this programme is implemented effectively in the state. Besides the government, teachers, students, parents are central to the system of education. So, there is a need for better coordination between these stakeholders. The government alone cannot be blamed for everything that fails. The stakeholders must also own their responsibility. If a government school or any other institution doesn’t perform well, it is for the teachers, students and parents to work toward its betterment.
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Online coaching for entrance tests
IF you cannot afford tuition fee to assess your potential for entry into a management course, GMAT or GRE, take a simple online test at the tcyonline.com website and plan for your future. The test can be attempted free of cost. In a novel endeavour, Top Careers and You, a Ludhiana-based company, which provides coaching classes for a range of entrance tests, including MBA, MCA, GRE, GMAT, SAT and law courses, has launched the site recently. Within a short span of a little more than a couple of months, the enrollment figure has crossed 40,000.
Giving the details, Kamal Wadhera, Chief Executive Officer, said benchmarking is a key issue in planning for any entrance examination today. Benchmarking done by individual coaching classes don’t give the correct standing of a candidate vis-à-vis students in other institutes. “Thus, we decided to create a common pool where a student could make his comparisons with students all over the country.” Wadhera said, “We have exposed students online to all our contents in our eight years’ experience. We have taken a big risk, however, the initial response tells that the site will save our financial interests as well while giving quality offer of assessment to students. As far as our financial gains are concerned, we have been approached by certain institutes for their online advertisements. We are looking into the matter and in case we get decent return, we might also make free the expert coaching classes which we will provide at a level higher than the entry level. Students will have a liberty to choose their levels.” It is also possible for students to pick any section of the testing material like IQ, general knowledge or numbers to estimate their potential based on the standings that the computer result would offer. The site allows teachers, or just passionate mentors and writers, to share their questions and tutorials with thousands of students by uploading their content in any format. ”We are working out the details of financial costs of Value-Added Services (VAS) under which students will have the option to choose tests, based on their preparation levels. Just clarifying on front of payments by students, our institute will offer free online testing to all students who want to check their standings in the general merit at the national level before joining expert coaching. The exercise will save a lot of time and money and also tell students their actual standing before they choose to commence their journey in preparing for any entrance examination,” Wadhera added.
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Campus NoteS
Three students of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication have won prizes in different events at the recently concluded National Media Festival organised by Panjab University, Chandigarh.
The Head of the Department, Dr Harish Kumar, said Pushkar, a student of MA (I), had won the second prize in the photography event, while Surender and Vikas of MA (II) had won the third prize for their documentary film on labour strikes. Participants from a number of universities located across the country took part in the festival, which was organised from January 18 to 20. As many as 22 students of the department, besides three research scholars-cum-teaching associates Ajmer Singh, Ajay Kumar and Ashwani Kumar, represented MDU at the national festival.
M.Ed counselling
As many as 34 athletes of the university are The authorities of MDU have decided to hold a special session of M.Ed counselling for the colleges under the university’s jurisdiction from January 29 to 31. According to an official statement issued here, the counselling would be held at the Senior Teachers’ Common Room of Indira Gandhi Vidya Bhavan, Gate No.7. The students are required to bring their original documents as well as attested copies thereof. While the fee of M.Ed course for self-financing education colleges is Rs 38,500 (subject to revision by the state fee committee) plus university charges, Rs 5,000 would have to be deposited with the university on the date of admission. — Contributed by Sunit Dhawan
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