The Primary and Secondary Education Minister B.C. Nagesh took officials of the Education Department to task for failing to bring students back into government schools and to check for out-of-school children in Kalaburagi, Bidar and Yadgir districts.
He was chairing the meeting to review the progress of the Education Department in Kalaburagi, Bidar and Yadgir districts in Kalaburagi on Wednesday.
Mr. Nagesh and Additional Commissioner of Public Instruction, Kalaburagi Division, Garima Panwar did not mince words while taking to task the officials of the Public Instruction department for failing to provide the required information in the review meeting and for coming without fully prepared with all the information to the meeting.
As per data provided by the department, around 2,21,823 students enrolled in Class 1 to Class 10 against the 2,46,720 target students. The enrollment of 24,897 students was either pending or dropped out from school in Kalaburagi district. Similarly, in Bidar district the enrollment status of 14,555 students was pending against the target, and in Yadgir district the enrollment of 18,831 students was pending in Class 1 to Class 10.
The officials failed to explain whether the pending figures shown in the data was due to delay in update or it was the number of drop-out students. The meeting witnessed the officials fumbling for answers to the probing questions of the Minister and Ms.Panwar. At one Stage, Ms. Panwar pulled up officials stating that “officials can take voluntary retirement, if they were not interested to work.”
Officials faced ire of Mr. Nagesh when they provided the enrollment data that was contrary to the data being fed on Students Achievement Tracking System (SATS), he criticised officials for making sincere efforts to bring back students to schools even after 50 days of school reopening.
The Minister directed the Deputy Directors, Block Education Officers, Block Resource Persons of the Public Instruction department to form teams and visit each school to cross check the SATS data with the enrollment and actual attendance of every class in each school, “Teams should also try to find out the reason for drop-outs and collect the details of each such students, and report to Ms. Panwar directly”.
Deadline
Ms. Panwar has set July 20 as the deadline for all the DDPIs to submit a comprehensive study report on the number of drop-outs in their respective districts and measures taken by the officials to bring them back to the school.
Mr. Nagesh said that each dropout student is not just a number, but the future of society. The government is committed to providing quality education to every child. The government spends around ₹23,000 crore for the Education Department of which ₹19,000 crore is spent on salary for teachers.
Slamming the lethargic attitude among teachers and officials in the Public Instructions Department, Mr. Nagesh asked teachers and officials to do justice to their profession. He said teachers working in private education institutions do not get salaries on time, have no job security, terminate teachers without any notice, whereas the government teachers are secured,” the Minister expressed.
MLCs Shashil Namoshi, MLA basavaraj Mattimod and Zilla panchayat Chief Executive office Girish Badole were present.
