Ranchi: It took just one year for the Hemant Soren-led government to undo the good work done over a period of five years by the previous BJP-led government, former education minister Neera Yadav claimed on Friday.
Speaking to media persons at the state BJP headquarters here, Yadav said, “The chief minister has not uttered a single word about improving the quality of education in government-run schools and colleges yet and neither has he presented any roadmap for strengthening the state’s infrastructure on education.”
She further said, “The government has even remained silent on the new National Education Policy (NEP), which was approved by the Centre in July last year and the former did not host the necessary deliberative sessions to sensitise the stakeholders regarding NEP.”
She added that very little was done for students living in remote areas of the state during lockdown and many of them could not attend online classes due to the unavailability of smartphones, tabs, etc. “Throughout the lockdown, the girl students were not given iron folic-acid tablets and sanitary napkins and the mid-day meal scheme was also discontinued,” she added.
“Although the government has reopened schools for Class X and XII examinees from this month, none of the buildings, which are shut for nearly 10 months owing to the lockdown, were cleaned or sanitized prior to their reopening,” she said.
Yadav also claimed that the incumbent government did not undertake any efforts to appoint teachers in primary, middle and high schools and did nothing to fill up the vacant posts of professors in colleges and universities. “During BJP’s tenure, as many as 41,000 teachers were appointed and the demands of para teachers were also addressed,” she claimed.
She also highlighted the new institutes which were commissioned during former CM Raghubar Das’s tenure. “We distributed new uniforms to students in government-run schools, provisioned desks and benches and rolled out various schemes to prevent the pupils from dropping out of school,” she said.