Wake up, link performance with pay

Nitin Jain

GOVERNMENT Model Senior Secondary School (GMSSS), Sector 38 (West), has a pass percentage of just 7.94 in Class X, the worst among government schools in Chandigarh. Which means that over 92 per cent of its students did not pass. Government Model High School (GMHS), Sector 22-C, had 37 students in Class X, of which just three cleared the exam, giving a pass percentage of 8.11, which means that close to 92 per cent students failed. The list of government schools where about 80 per cent students failed in Class X shows that not only schools on the periphery but also those located in the heart of the city have fared badly.

As if this was not enough, about 3,000 students comprising 20 per cent of the total strength were promoted from Class IX to Class X with grace marks. A maximum of 10 grace marks were given to each student. The number assumes significance as about 5,567 students, about 52 per cent of the total students, failed in the Class X CBSE exams this year and grace marks, which promote ineligible students every year, seem to cast a shadow on the results in 2019 also.

Official data revealed that there was a total of 15,000 students in Class IX this year, of which over 4,000  flunked the exams and were detained. If we count 3,000 students, who had been promoted with grace marks, over 7,000 students had actually flunked the exams, which works out to about 48 per cent of the total students.

This portrays a sorry state of affairs in government schools of Chandigarh, whereas the situation is worse in Mohali and Panchkula. The governments have been spending too much on creating the infrastructure and paying the staff in state-run schools but when it comes to results, it seems the entire expenditure is going down the drain.

No doubt exceptions are there but a majority of government schools have poor standard of education, which is why the well-to-do-people rely more on costly private schools. It is an open secret and an irony too that the pay and perks of government schoolteachers are much higher than those of their counterparts in private schools but when it comes to results, government schools stand nowhere.

Fixing the responsibility of teachers, linking their performance with pay and perks, making it obligatory on them to put their wards in government schools, doing away with non-detention policy till Class VIII as provided under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, and putting a full stop to the practice of grace marks are some of the ways we can improve the performance of government schools.

Until they produce good results, there is no use running government schools and, that also, at so much expenditure. The question that begs for an answer is that if a majority of the private schools can log 100 per cent results, why can’t government schools? It is time for every government schoolteacher to introspect and answer this question. 

QUESTION

As dust and haze enveloped the tricity for two consecutive days last week, Chandigarh witnessed the highest-ever concentration of PM2.5, a pollutant which is so fine that it can reach our lungs directly and then the blood system. The situation was so bad that the Chandigarh international airport remained shut for two consecutive days. A recent study had found that the air quality of Chandigarh was deteriorating, especially in the months of winter. What are the reasons for deteriorating air quality and rising pollution levels and what should be done to improve the environment in the City Beautiful? Send your suggestions in not more than 70 words at [email protected]