Tough decisions have paid off, reforms will continue: Education Minister

Elated over the state securing an overall fifth rank in the National Achievement Survey (NAS), Education Minister Rohit Thakur today said that it took strong political will and tough decisions to lift the declining standard of education in the state. “The state had finished a lowly 21st in the last NAS survey during the tenure of the previous BJP government. When we took over, we decided to take tough decisions to consolidate our resources in the hope that it would yield good results in the long run. Thankfully, results have started pouring in within just two years,” said the Education Minister while addressing the media persons here today. “It’s very encouraging for us, and will continue with the reforms till the end of our term,” the minister said.

The minister pointed out that the much-improved performance in the latest ASER report was the first morale-booster for the state. “We showed a lot of improvement in the ASER report, particularly in the learning and reading level parameter where we were ranked No 1 in the country ahead of Kerala,” he said. “We recorded improvement in the Performance Grade Index (PGI) as well, and now we have jumped 16 places in the NAS. We are showing significant improvement in every survey, which is a big achievement,” said Thakur.

The minister credited tough decisions like de-notification and merger of over 1,500 schools, clustering of schools, filling up vacant posts, rationalisation efforts and exposure visits for teachers for significant improvement in the education sector. “When we came to power, there were around 350 schools without teachers and around 3600 schools having a single teacher. Now, there are only around 50 schools without teachers and the number of schools with one teacher has also reduced to almost half,” the minister said.

Thakur further said that while the teachers producing good results were being encouraged in various ways like exposure visits, the teachers failing to show results are being penalised. “Increments of teachers giving poor results are being stopped. Going a step further, we are holding even the school heads accountable for poor results,” he said.

The minister further said that the government and the department have zero tolerance policy towards the accusations of sexual harassment in the educational institutions. “We are aware of the recent incidents of sexual harassment in schools. Strict action will be taken as per the conduct rules against the offenders,” he said.