Many zeroes in this report card

CHANDIGARH: With the pass percentage of 46 in Class X and 56 in Class XII education in Haryana is at its lowest ebb

Updated At : 08:02 AM May 18, 2015 IST

<p>Students sit on the floor near broken furniture in a classroom at a government school in Karnal. Tribune photo: Ravi Kumar</p>

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 17

With the pass percentage of 46 in Class X and 56 in Class XII, education in Haryana is at its lowest ebb. The Education Department certainly could not have expected a better deal, considering the shortage of nearly 38,000 teachers.

Schools without teachers have been the bane of a crumbling education system down successive governments. The no-detention policy followed till Class VIII, poor infrastructure in government schools and consistent shift of students from public to private schools have resulted in a vicious circle that the quality education finds itself caught in session after session.

Add to that, the quality of students attending classes in government schools, their frequent absence and the lack of political will to address issues facing education have caused a freefall of the pass percentages in the past several years in a system where the performance of teachers available is far from satisfactory.

With dingy inadequate rooms in the name of school buildings, no desks and chairs available for students, conducting classes in corridors and under the shade of trees, most parents have chosen to shift their wards to private schools that offer “decent facilities and dignified student status”.

Moreover, government schools in most places have essentially become the last choice of those coming from the lowest strata of society, of parents wanting to enrol children for government stipends on offer as also the leniency they allow in attendance. The School Education Department has been unable to check this trend though the re-introduction of examinations and monthly tests for all classes seems the first crucial step taken to arrest it.

Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma, too, chose to wash his hands off the poor results and blamed it on the previous Congress regime. This is mere political convenience.

Since the BJP took over six months ago, Sharma’s agenda has been the “saffronisation of education” by pushing for the setting up of an advisory panel headed by RSS ideologue Dinanath Batra as also the introduction of the Bhagwad Gita. This, Sharma should realise, cannot improve the dipping standards of education since the crisis is bigger than that and it begins with a fair recruitment process of teachers.

“There is no magic wand to change the system overnight. We are alive to the concerns and working on addressing these. The department has already announced the schedule for monthly examinations, reintroduced earlier this year, to be held throughout the session. Besides, teachers have been requested to take extra classes of students in schools where the result is 50 per cent and less to raise the learning levels of students,” TC Gupta, Principal Secretary, School Education, said.