Education reform: Areas that need urgent attention and change

Education reform: Areas that need urgent attention and change

Since taking over the reins of the UT administration, honourable LG Manoj Sinha has taken a keen interest in the education sector and has already created a task force in the form of education reform committees at different levels of hierarchy. The education department has also a dynamic and dedicated Principal Secretary, Mr B K Singh, who is willing to work hard in streamlining things to produce better results. In Kashmir division, Mr Singh has been ably supported by a visionary Director of School Education, Dr Tassaduq Hussain Mir, who has garnered a lot of goodwill with his kind approach and professional behaviour with the stakeholders. As part of the much-needed reform in education sector, many steps, like introduction of kindergarten in govt primary schools, and detachment of teachers from various non-teaching assignments, have already been taken and some are due to follow in the due course of time. This is quite appreciable but many educationists and experts have further suggestions which could make the process of reform more result-oriented. Some of the steps that can be considered by the authorities include:
• Teacher Transfer Policy: The transfer policy for teachers needs a comprehensive review. It was stated by the government that transfer of teaching personnel shall be made at the beginning of the academic year only, but we are already in May and the teachers are still waiting for the ATD. Some experts firmly believe that instead of ATD at the highest level, the job of transfers should be assigned to the Chief Education Officers and the Zonal Education Officers, with clear-cut guidelines from the higher authorities. Ideally, a teacher’s transfer should take place after every three years and must be done in the interest of students only. Since the government has done away with the academic arrangement system in the higher secondary schools, over the last three years teachers with subject-specific qualifications have been deployed to such higher secondaries where they are needed. ATD being an automatic system won’t cater to such specific requirements and also, in case of female teachers, ATD has many shortcomings. Some govt schools, especially in cities and towns, have lesser enrollment and would need fewer teachers but ATD won’t be able to address the issue of Pupil Teacher Ratio. There are already education reform committees at District and Zonal level and for the smooth conduct of the process they could have efficiently helped the officers in the transfer of teachers. It is also important to highlight the fact that CEOs and ZEOs are in a much better position to know the staff position, enrollment and even the competence of teachers in their jurisdictions.
• Rationalisation of teachers: In order to promote a better PTR (Pupil Teacher Ratio) in schools, the school education department has been carrying out the process of rationalisation for some time now, but it has not served the purpose because it is being done at the Zonal level only where one subject-specific teacher from one school is deployed to another or a higher secondary school without considering the PTR. It is important to highlight that there is a low PTR in cities and towns as most of the educational institutions in urban areas have lower enrollment but higher number of teachers, which defeats the purpose of rationalisation. A better rationalisation would have been to deploy the teachers from cities and towns to nearby rural educational zones where poor students are enrolled. It has been observed that the government schools in urban education zones have more teachers than required and the nearby rural education zones even at a distance of two or three kilometers have huge enrollment but fewer teachers. The schools at various administrative headquarters have usually more teachers than required. This discrimination needs immediate attention.
Teachers transferred or deployed to difficult areas should be given special incentives while the female teachers should be given certain concessions during the annual transfers. The government instead of appointing candidates on academic arrangement in higher secondary schools where there are vacancies has preferred the deployment of higher qualified teachers to fill the gaps. It is not a bad move but such subject-specific teachers should be given some weightage during promotions.
• Promotions: All professions offer their recruits the opportunity of pursuing a career, in the sense that individuals can be promoted through a clearly delineated promotions hierarchy. Promotion is the passage to a higher rank and is one of the reinforcers of the rewards system to help motivate employees. If rewards are allocated only on non-performance factors like seniority, job title, etc, employees are likely to reduce their efforts. On the other hand, in a hierarchy where promotion is solely a reward for good performance, people tend to enhance their performance. In fact, ‘pay for performance’ programmes are gaining more popularity but we in J&K continue with the less motivational promotion policy of employees, especially the teachers, which is one of the reasons for declining performance of government teachers. There are so many other departments which offer promotions to their employees through departmental examinations, so why no such opportunities for teachers who deserve to be rewarded, recognised and motivated on the basis of their performance? There is no rational logic behind promoting an employee or a teacher merely on time-bound basis. Many a time teachers are promoted as lecturers or masters when they are at the verge of retirement or have lost their interest in assuming a new role. It would be really beneficial even for the students and the department itself if after 5 or 6 years of service in the school education department, a teacher is given the opportunity to appear in a departmental examination to become a master or a lecturer. It would always keep a teacher motivated and up for the challenge.
• Special attention to kindergarten: Over the last decade government schools in J&K faced a huge issue of declining enrollment in schools but in the last two years the school education department has been able to enroll a good number of students, for which the due credit goes to the Principal Secretary and the DSEK, but there is an apprehension if these new entrants could be retained. To address this issue, the integration of anganwadi centres with the nearby primary or upper primary schools should be done without any further delay.
• Curriculum and textbooks: A carefully designed and well-executed curriculum plays a significant role in the success of a school and its students and teachers. Strong curricular design, when delivered by well-prepared and qualified educators, ensures that the students can achieve the appropriate learning outcomes. In J&K schools the curriculum needs a revision while the textbooks are not up to the mark. The textbooks at primary and upper primary level are outdated, boring and devoid of any attraction.
• Assessment and Evaluation: The intent of assessment is to measure effectiveness; evaluation adds a value component to the process. A teacher may assess a student to ascertain how well the individual successfully met the learning target but there are various faults in the process which need to be addressed. Also, the teachers with better outcomes need to be awarded and appreciated. The teachers with poor results are punished but surprisingly the officers are not held accountable. It is important that the officers are also ranked by their performance and held accountable.
• Teachers’ Training: In-service training or staff development and skill enhancement programme for teachers plays an essential role in successful education reform. It also serves as a bridge between prospective and experienced educators to meet the new challenges of guiding students towards higher standards of learning and self development. In developing the professionalism of teachers, training programmes such as in-service training should not be run away from. In-service training offers one of the most promising roads to the improvement of instruction, and as such the SCERT and DIETS should be made more vibrant and goal oriented. Unfortunately, our BEd programme is the most outdated and obsolete; it needs immediate revamp to cater to modern educational standards of educators and teachers.
• Scholarship and higher education for students as well as teachers: The government should introduce special monthly scholarship schemes for BPL students, provide smart gadgets to such students, and try to provide a better infrastructure for better results. Higher education for teachers should be encouraged and facilitated as it would ultimately benefit the students and the community as well.

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