Measures underway to check falling enrolment, improve quality of education in govt schools

A few girl students were walking back to their homes at Dharech, one of the remote villages in Shimla district. Instead of government school uniform, they were attired in elegant grey pants, pullover and a tie. “We love our new uniform, it’s so much better than the old one,” the girls said as they pulled up each other into a pick-up van that offered to drop them close to their homes.

The government’s decision to allow the schools to decide their own uniform, in consultation with parents, has given the government school students an opportunity to dress up smartly, like the students of private institutes.

Allowing schools to choose their uniforms may appear to be a cosmetic change to address bigger challenges like a sharp decline in enrolment at government schools, but it could go a long way in checking the current exodus of students from government schools to private institutions. Smart uniform and English as a medium of instruction are among the major reasons behind parents and students preferring private schools over government institutes.

For the record, private schools are just around 15 per cent of the total schools in the state and yet they have nearly 40 per cent of the total students. The declining quality of education, which reflects in the ASER Report and Performance Grading Index, is another big challenge facing government schools.

To their credit, the government and the Education Department have made serious efforts to bring about a positive change, right from pre-primary to the college level. The government started off by shutting down schools with zero or minimal enrolment, inviting stiff resistance from the Opposition.

Around 1,100 schools have been shut or merged so far. The bold move was followed by several constructive initiatives such as identifying over 800 schools as Schools of Excellence, clustering of schools for resource sharing, banning transfer of teachers in the middle of an academic session, etc. The Schools of Excellence will have adequate teachings staff and other required facilities to offer quality education. The cluster schools are sharing human and physical resources like playgrounds, labs, etc. The ban on transfers during the academic session will ensure students will have teachers for the entire year.

The other initiatives included upgrading teachers’ abilities through training and foreign exposure visits and making selection criteria for the State Teachers Award transparent and credible. Besides, necessary changes have been made to increase the number of teaching days in an academic year and the system of grading schools and colleges have been introduced to induce healthy competition among the institutions. Also, English has been introduced as a medium of instruction in all schools from Class I.

On the flip side, the enrolment continues to drop despite having taken so many initiatives. In the current academic session alone, the enrolment in government schools has dropped by over 50,000 from Class I to VIII. “These initiatives will take some time to show results. We will see the results of some initiatives shortly, while the impact of some measures will be felt in due course of time,” said Rakesh Kanwar, Secretary, Education.

Filling vacancies is one area where greater push is required. Around 3,000 batch-wise appointment of JBT and TGT have been made, but no direct appointments yet. Attempts like the guest teacher policy and appointments on the outsourced basis have evoked stiff resistance. On the basis of efforts and number of initiatives taken, it has been a productive year for the education sector.