By Haroon Rashid Bhat
“This decentralization process not only improves the accountability but also bring efficiency in the utilization of human resource and funds sanctioned in favor of schools”
Education reform is always a major concern for any government all over the world. There is pressure on education policies to represent their results in terms of economic and social development on a global scale. In this regard, the Govt. of India has so far formulated three education policies after independence. The first national education policy in India came in 1968 and the second in 1986; the national education policy of 1986 was revised in 1992. Now, the third national education policy- 2020 has been announced recently. If we do an analytical review of previous education policies and the new one, we realized that the common cause of all these policies is to direct the progression of the entire education system. But, it has been seen the previous education policies could not achieve the desired results because of the shortfall in the implementation process. Poor results, increasing dropout rate, School or class size, defective curriculum structure, student-teacher ratio, etc. are still some of the main issues that are yet to be fully resolved. To address these aforementioned issues, there is a need to give more focus on the implementation phase. And to make this implementation phase more effective, transparent, and vibrant, the following initiatives can help us to achieve the anticipated targets.
Creation of New Education Zones: If we see the present structural scenario of educational zones, they are inadequate. It is practically impossible for the concerned Officer to look after the academic or non-academic affairs of all schools falling within the Zone. Therefore, there is a need to create New Education Zones so that the execution or supervision of schemes or processes will be taken care of on the ground level.
Creation of Non-Teaching Posts for Schools: Induction of pre-primary classes is a much-needed recommendation by NEP-2020, appreciated by all. Private and public schools have already running pre-primary classes. But without the support of non-teaching staff like female attend/School mothers, government schools can’t run such classes. As we know these growing kids besides teaching and learning need special attention in terms of safety, health, and hygiene. If the government is serious about inducting such classes in government schools. Then, there is a need to provide each school with the requisite infrastructure and staff so that these institutions will shoulder this new responsibility efficiently and effectively.
Decentralization of Power: The success of any policy is directly linked with the process of its execution. If the policy is executed in a better way, it will certainly yield the best results. Department of school education is one of the big departments and can’t be controlled single handily by the Directorate Office. There is a need to share the responsibilities among the executive officers as per the already established hierarchy. In this regard, decentralization of power can be the key to execute this new policy of education. This decentralization process not only improves the accountability but also bring efficiency in the utilization of human resource and funds sanctioned in favor of schools. Let the teacher posts be sanctioned against zone not against any particular school. Similarly, Master grade teacher posts should be sanctioned against the District not against any particular School. Let the Chief Education Officer and Zonal Education Officer be given full authority to utilize the human resources within the district or zone where and when required without any external meddling. Bring all teachers (ERET’s, RET’s now teachers grade-2nd, 3rd) under the ambit of transfer policy so that their services can be utilized within the Zone. This initiative will solve the problem of Disproportionate Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) which has become the most challenging problem in school education department right now. Let us hope for the best.
Haroon Rashid Bhat is a teacher and columnist , can be reached at minamharoon123@gmail.com
