GUWAHATI, July 19 � Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today laid stress on producing committed teachers and responsible guardians to produce shining students from each of the State�s communities. For the purpose, the State also needs to develop an academic system which can provide equal treatment to each of its students, he said. He was replying to a debate on the cut motion on the demand of a grant of Rs 585406.16 lakh for Elementary Education in the State Assembly.
The immediate task before the Education Department is to bring back the society to the public sector educational institutions. At present the society has drifted away from the Government educational institutions, particularly the Government schools to the private sector schools to register a protest against the absence of quality in the public sector educational institutions, he said.
The State Government will try in the next five years to bring in qualitative changes to the education sector, he asserted.
For the purpose, the accountability of the teachers of public sector educational institutions should be brought back. The teachers of the public sector educational institutions should assume 80 per cent of the responsibility of the performance of their students. Rest 20 per cent responsibility should be assumed by the guardians, he said.
Those school teachers who fail to ensure success of 30 per cent of their students in the school finals should be asked to accept either the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) or the compulsory retirement scheme (CRS). The schools will be provided three years� time for attaining this mandatory 30 per cent success rate for the purpose of provincialisation, the Minister said.
On the issue of introduction of the TET test for the appointment of teachers, he said that this test has been introduced to induct brilliant students into the education system as teachers. By approving this system for teachers� appointment, the Assembly should send the message to the people that for the post of teachers, candidates should appear in a test and not to approach the MLAs and the Ministers, he said, adding, getting quality teachers is the fundamental right of the students.
The problem of unemployment could be solved by producing brilliant students, who can get employed, not by absorbing the unemployed lot of people in the schools without any scrutiny, the Minister said.
He also maintained that the Government is not for the active participation of the teachers in political activities. Though the Government is considerate to the grievances of the Shiksha Mitras, it is for their appearing in the TET for confirmation of their jobs, he said.
This time, the State Government is going to provincialise the schools set up between 1991 and 1999 at a stretch, considering the cases of the teachers of these schools with a humanitarian approach. The process of provincialisation of the schools will come to an end as soon as the schools set up in 2006 are provincialised.
Thereafter, the Government will start setting up primary schools at an interval of one kilometre and high schools at the interval of three kilometres. Schools set up at private initiative thereafter won�t be provincialised, warned the Minister.
Earlier taking part in the debate, Keshab Mahanta (AGP) called for steps to get the answer scripts evaluated in a manner that enables the State�s students securing seats in good educational institutions outside the State.
The Government should provide laboratory and library grants to the educational institutions and research facilities to the institutions of higher learning, he said.
Ranjit Das (BJP) pleaded, among others, that the services of the teachers of the institutions like the Jatiya Vidyalaya and Sankaradeva Shishu Niketan should either be provincialised or these institutions should be provided ex-gratia grants.
Majendra Narzary (BPF) said that some relaxations should be given to the products of the Bodo Medium schools located in the rural areas in matters of appointment. As, he said, these people have to face a lot of problems in getting quality education.
Bidya Singh Engleng (Congress) pleaded that there should be some relaxation in matters of enrollment to the schools located in the hills districts for the purpose of provincialisation. In these districts, particularly in the Nagaland border areas of these districts, relaxations should be granted in matters of distance of the schools, he said.
Pallab Lochan Das (Congress) suggested that educated youths of the tea garden community should be employed as teacher of the primary schools located in the tea estate areas to remove the barrier of language faced by the children in these schools. Schooling facilities should also be made available at the tea estate cr�ches, where the older children are often made to act as the baby sitters for their younger brothers or sisters.
Anjan Dutta (Congress) suggested that a committee should be set up to look into the process of provincialisation of the schools, so as to avoid inclusion of non-eligible schools in the process. Moreover, the non-sanctioned posts of teachers should also be sanctioned, he said.
After the Minister�s reply, the Opposition members withdrew their cut motions and the demand was passed by the House by voice vote.
