UT education dept fails to fulfill its commitments made last year

The UT education department has failed to fulfill various commitments made by it last year during a meeting of Project Approval Board (PAB).

The UT education department has failed to fulfill various commitments made by it last year during a meeting of Project Approval Board (PAB).

Several important observations were made during the 217th meeting of the PAB for considering the Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWP&B) 2015-16 for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Right to Education (RTE) held on February 12 this year.

The state was represented by education secretary Sarvjit Singh and officers from the UT SSA office. The UT committed to complete and open four composite schools sanctioned in 2012-13 and 2013-14 by October 2014.

As per the PAB report, the department could complete construction of just one school while three government high schools in Sectors 48-D and 49-C and Kishangarh are yet to be completed.

Moreover, the UT committed not to assign any non academic work (barring census, elections and disaster management) to teachers. Though UT officials claimed to fulfill the respective commitment in the report, teachers in UT schools can be seen indulged in non-academic tasks in the school timings.

"It appears school heads are involved in the act of insubordination and openly violating the teacher specific norms of the RTE Act 2009. Teachers are attending every non-academic work such as incharge of 15 school funds apart from SSA, RMSA, mid-day meal, opening of student's bank account and many more. It is high time that the education dept must check implementation of section 27 of teacher specific norms. Teachers are doing non-academic works and result of Classes 9,10,11 and 12 are getting worst," said Arvind Rana, president of SSA Teachers Welfare Association, UT.

Another commitment made by the UT was to expedite the implementation of admission of 25% children from disadvantaged groups and weaker sections in Class 1 in private unaided schools and declare its norms before the next academic session. However, 751 seats were reserved for admission of the students under EWS category/disadvantaged group in private recognised schools in Chandigarh, but only 615 students were admitted under EWS/disadvantaged group in the session 2014-15.

According to the latest PAB report, the commitment has not been met as admissions under 12 (1) (c) were required to be implemented.

The latest PAB report reads, "The UT has low rate of mainstreaming for special training to regular schools. Against coverage of 4,365 children in special training, UT could mainstream only 1174 children. It was pointed out that funds meant for out of school children were not being spent properly. The grant was erratic and not given for months on end. Hence the UT was advised to regularise the fund flow mechanism".

It further reads, "The UT committed that National Achievement Survey (NAS) achievement levels would be baseline for improvement in different classes. NAS results show that the performance of children from Chandigarh was lower than the national average in Classes 3, 5 and 8."

Concern over girls dropping out at upper primary level was also expressed in the meeting. "The gender parity index (GPI) is only 0.76 in Class 8, indicating the girls are dropping out at upper primary level," read the report.

The UT has also committed to ensure bio-metric attendance for teachers and students in the year 2015-16.