Bihar government plans to rank its schools on quantifiable parameters in a bid to improve quality
The ranking will be done separately for primary, middle, secondary and higher secondary schools on specific yardsticks
in a bid to improve quality of government schools both in terms of education and holistic development of students, Bihar government has now decided to rank the institutions on specific quantifiable parameters.
Additional chief secretary (education) S Siddharth on Wednesday wrote to all the district educators action officers (DEPs) about the department’s decision to conduct rankings of all the schools twice a year - in November and March - on laid down parameters.
The ranking will be done separately for primary, middle, secondary and higher secondary schools on specific yardsticks, viz. education, co-curricular activities, cleanliness, discipline, resource utilisation, grievance redressal etc. in the prescribed format.
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The move is important as Bihar was ranked among the bottom five states in the 2019 School Education Quality Index (SEQI) developed by Niti Ayog to evaluate the performance of States and Union Territories (UTs) in the school education sector. The index aims to bring an outcomes focus to education policy by providing States and UTs with a platform to identify their strengths and weaknesses and undertake requisite course corrections or policy interventions.
“The ranking in Bihar will be on a 100-point scale and it will also be a mandatory requirement for annual evaluation report of teachers. The purpose is to improve quality for holistic education to the students and for that the role of teachers is paramount,” Siddharth has written along with the ranking formats for all the schools.
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The schools will be allotted stars on the basis of their rankings to develop a categorisation of top performing institutions, as the University Grants Commission (UGC) has done for colleges and universities.
The top performing schools scoring in the range of 85-100 will get FIVE Stars, followed by Four Star (75-84), Three Star (50-74), Two Star (25-49) and One Star (0-24).
Education department officials said that the purpose of this “star rating” of schools is to make them aspirational and quality conscious, which in turn would create a healthy atmosphere to provide the best to the students.
“It will also help the weak institutions aspire and work hard. They will also be involved and demand what they need from the government. The purpose is to create an atmosphere of healthy competition to give the students the best,” they said.
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Till a few decades ago, Bihar boasted of a robust government school system, with each district having some reputed institutions. Many of the country’s top bureaucrats holding powerful positions were from the government school system, but things started deteriorating in 1980s and the slide gathered momentum in the 1990s and never improved after that to create room for mushroom growth of private schools.
Last month, Bihar’s premiere Patna University was the only state university that could find place in the National Institutional Framework Ranking (NIRF) in the category of state public universities, while Patna Women’s College was the only college in the college category.
There was no university in the state in the overall ranking for universities of the country to tell the story of state that still takes pride in the legacy of Nalanda University and Vikramshila University, the ancient seats of learning that drew students and scholars from across the globe.
