Release Rs80 cr for school edu dept: Capt

Reiterating his willingness to slash budget of other departments to make funds available for the reform of State’s education sector, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday directed the Finance Department to immediately release Rs 80 crore for the school education department.

Capt Amarinder, chairing a meeting of the Expert Group of Teachers, reiterated his stand that paucity of funds would not be allowed to come in the way of overhauling the state’s education system.

He directed the state Education Secretary to work out a detailed scheme for strengthening school infrastructure so that sufficient funds could be made available for the same. He also urged Punjab NRIs to come forward to support the state in this effort with generous contributions, while exhorting industry to extend support through their CSR initiatives.

The Expert Group comprises principals, headmasters or administrators of schools whose students had performed well in the Board exams. The Chief Minister had convened the meeting to seek their suggestions on uplifting the standards of school education in Punjab.

The Expert Group, led by Patiala Government Senior Secondary School principal Kiranjeet Kaur, had earlier submitted its recommendations to the Education Minister OP Soni.

During discussions on the various suggestions and inputs received from the Group, the Chief Minister underlined the need to strengthen the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) across the state, by providing the best trainers aligned with the latest techniques of teaching.

He suggested that if required, the trainer-teachers should be given exposure to the best private schools in the state.  He also directed the Education Department to complete the process of setting up new DIET centres in the remaining five districts by the year-end.

During the meeting, the Chief Minister accepted the proposal of Education Minister not to transfer teachers in the middle of the term. He also agreed to the suggestion of the Principal Secretary to create a separate state training cadre, and sought a detailed feasibility report from the Education Department.

Highlighting the importance of digitalization of education material, the Chief Minister instructed the Department to intensify its efforts to provide online teaching material to the students, which would be particularly beneficial to students in remote border and other areas or in the case of vacancy of a particular subject teacher.

The School Education Secretary informed that the e-content for all the subjects, in accordance with the curriculum, would be ready before the year end.

Chief Minister agreed to the teachers’ recommendation to press the Centre for a review of no-retention policy, whereby students from Class I to IX are promoted irrespective of their dismal academic performance. It was felt by the expert group that the policy was encouraging indiscipline amongst students who did not attend regular classes nor took the efforts of their teachers seriously.

Capt Amarinder also agreed to a suggestion on rationalization of block master trainers and cluster master trainers under the Learning Enhancement Programme, saying that the training should be need-based.

The Chief Minister suggested organizing teacher study-tours to states like Kerala and Himachal Pradesh to acquaint them with the teaching practices prevailing there.