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Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: A story of lost focus and purchases galore Faridabad, December 5 The District Education Department has received an aid of Rs 8 crore for the year 2003-2004 for the SSA. The officials concerned are reported to be busy in purchasing material which includes furniture (dual desks) almirahs, science equipment and swings for all primary schools in the district. While the main motive of the scheme is to enrol each and every child aged between six and 14 years for formal and informal education, the officials concerned could not tell how many new children had been identified or enrolled under the SSA so far when contacted by this correspondent. An official of the department, however, said the main responsibility of getting the children identified and enrolled lay with the teachers and groups attached with the primary schools and the scheme. Village education committees (VEC) were expected to provide the support in this matter. The SSA was launched about a year and half ago in the district. The District Education Office (DEO) sources revealed that besides the special grant of Rs 8 crore under the SSA scheme the department had received about Rs 16 crore more under the district primary education programme (DPEP). Out of this amount the administration had purchased swings (jhulas) worth Rs 47.60 lakh for the 595 primary schools. Besides, about Rs 43 lakh had been spent on the repair work of buildings of these schools. According to the DEO, Mr Harbans Lal, dual desks worth Rs 2.24 crore, almirahs costing Rs 17 lakhs, books of Rs 76 lakh and science equipment worth about Rs 10 lakh had already been purchased. It may be recalled that primary students in the state had to sit on the ground till now as there was no furniture in these schools. The Education Department, which plans to open pre-primary schools known as bachpan shala has perhaps no idea of how to tackle the various problems facing them. These include shortage of teachers in the primary schools and enrolling new students, especially those who had left schools or who could not take up education due to family responsibilities. |
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Orientation programme for examiners Gurgaon, December 5 To start with, the board has identified a major lacuna in the examination system: the varying subjectivity and yardsticks applied on the part of different examiners for the same set of answer-sheets. The board held its first orientation programme for examiners and schoolteachers of Gurgaon division encompassing Gurgaon, Faridabad, Rewari and Mahendragarh districts. The board will organise such programmes at all the divisional headquarters of the state by the end of this month. Finally, it will come out with a compendium on the issue for better orientation of the examiners. Speaking at the orientation programme, the Chairman of the Board of School Education, Brig O. P. Chaudhary (retd), said the examiners had different wavelength and approach while correcting the answer-sheets. With assessment being part of a very subjective domain the chances are that the same answer-sheet may have different gradations when assessed by different persons. Such a situation can sometimes lead to the students willy nilly getting a raw deal. It is to rectify this possible anomalous situation and bring uniformity of views and methods of assessment that this orientation programme was organised, he added. Brigadier Chaudhary, an educationist who also had a stint as Vice-Chancellor of Maharshi Dayanad University(MDU), Rohtak, lamented that the products of schools under the ambit of the board sometimes did not stand on a par with their counterparts from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Hence, a lot of efforts needed to be put in to raise the standard of students passing out of the schools affiliated to the board. He further said a scheme would be implemented to effect better coordination and understanding among parents, teachers and students to make school education more effective and purposeful. The bottomline was that there had to be collective input and the orientation programme was a part of it. He urged the examiners to give due consideration to the critical faculties of the examinees as reflected in the answer scripts. He said the board had decided to take stock of all the pros and cons after each examination to smoothen any possible rough edges in a linear progression towards bettering the examination process and academic curriculum in the state. He emphasised that the board would continue to play a pro-active role in bettering the examination component, which was a vital link of the process of education. |
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Schools to open a new chapter in life of the disabled Jhajjar, December 5 According to the education department sources, special medical camps are being held in the state for the disabled children. The funds would be allocated on the basis of the strength of such children in a school in each district and an expense of Rs 1,200 per child has been fixed in the scheme. A medical camp would be organised for these children at block level. One camp would be held at every 100 children and special study material would be provided to them in the schools. The sources said that these schools would be opened in the buildings of the Haryana Urban Development Authority in the districts and other governments building where the HUDA building was not available. The government would also provide the conveyance facility to these disabled children for going to the schools. The main aim of the schools would be to fulfill the special needs of the disabled children and prepare them to join school at primary level. According to information, an amount of Rs 8.78 lakh has been granted for this district to run the disabled children school in a primary school in Jhajjar. A sum of Rs 1 lakh has been earmarked to spread awareness about this programme and encourage the disabled children to participate in this. An amount of Rs 50,000 has been fixed for organising a workshop and lecture for this programme in every district. The NGOs would be allotted Rs 3 lakh for their participation. The primary school teachers would be given special training to teach such children. The sources said that 10 teachers have been selected from this district that would be given refresher courses. The Anganwari kendras are also being given grants of Rs 10 lakh under the Sarve Siksha campaign launched by the Central government in every district of the state for equipping them with better facilities and instruments for the benefit of the children. The children up to the age of five years would be given the benefit of this scheme. The toys, education kits, charts, storybooks and mats would be supplied to the Anganwaris at every district headquarters. |
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Signature drive for lifting ban on students’ poll Sonepat, December 5 Activists of the SFI will obtain 50,000 signatures of college students and hand them over to Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala. The memorandum will also include around 10 other demands relating to the welfare of students and their studies. Stating this to NCR Tribune here today, the district president of the SFI, Kunal Gahlawat, informed that for this campaign the SFI had already constituted units in every district of the state for obtaining signatures of the students. The responsibility for Sonepat district had been handed over to him. “I have already obtained signatures of 1500 students of different colleges in the district,” he added. About the 10 demands, Mr Gahlawat said besides raising the demand for withdrawal of the recent fee hike in the professional and technical courses the SFI would also demand filling the vacant posts in the colleges at the earliest as on account of the vacant posts the ultimate losers were the students. The student leader pointed out that following disruption of the bus services on local routes the students coming from the villages had been facing great problems in reaching college. This would also be brought to the notice of the Chief Minister. He expressed concern over increasing incidents of eve-teasing, saying, “We will suggest constituting a separate committee to deal with such cases and curb this menace.” The demand would also include streamlining of the job-oriented programmes in the colleges as per the policy of the government, he said, adding that though the government had already issued directions about this programme it required implementation by the college management. |
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Indraprastha V-C plans online exam system New Delhi, December 5 Following his reappointment, the V-C said he would continue to work for achieving his objectives. His future plans include streamlining the examination system of the university. Prof Aggarwal hopes to introduce a system of online examination to benefit the students, so that he has a choice of centres and dates. The GGSIPU officials also disclosed plans for tie-ups with the universities abroad. Referring to the proposed tie-up for online program with the University of Warwick (UK), it was pointed out that there is a proposal to start an online programme on Law and Development with the university from the Academic year 2004-2005. As per the proposal, Warwick will offer a two-year Master’s of Law and Legal Studies (LLM) programme to the GGSIP University students. Though students will be studying in India, they would be going to the UK for two to four weeks’ internship to the University of Warwick. Both the universities will jointly develop the curriculum. The programme will have a focus on the Asian, especially the Indian issues like law in content of urban development and environmental law. It was pointed out that the programme would also include inputs on human rights, intellectual property rights, cyber law, laws for women, humanitarian law and refugee laws among others. |
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