According to a recent report from the center, Experts from the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have been asked to come up with a suggestion regarding the minimum standard for every class. Once the recommendations are finalized , all the Government Schools have been directed to henceforth decorate the school walls with those standards written on them. Ministry sources also informed that our honorable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has stressed on this drive at a recent meeting with the HRD ministers.
The accepted standards are more aimed at helping stake holders like parents, teachers and students to realize what they have achieved and what not rather than evaluating students for promotions. The people who are not agreeing to this drive say that the success of such an initiative seems bleak because teachers often have to deal with non-academic errands apart from their academic duties, thereby lesser time to focus on teaching. Another folly in the idea was pointed out by Madhu Prasad, member of the All India Forum for Right to Education. He pointed out that several schools either don’t have walls to write on, or the walls are collapsing. Such an infrastructural glitch has sure raised questions.
Moreover, several teachers are appointed contractually but are not paid as much as they should be getting. This is evidenced by the 5 lakh vacant seats for sanctioned teacher positions, as depicted in a survey by Oxfam India policy in March last year. The problem is further aggravated due to the fact that out of the in-service teachers in the 13 lakh elementary schools in the country, around 6.6 lakh teachers were untrained. Alarmingly, it has also been found that nearly 10 % schools were single teacher schools. Added to all this is the UNESCO EFA Monitoring Report of 2014 which showed that teacher absenteeism in India varied from 15% in Maharashtra to 42% in Jharkhand.
Thus only by a wall writing initiative with other parameters ignored, will not give the Opportunities result . Rukmini Bannerjee, a member associated with the publication of the Annual Status Report on Education(ASER) said that parents role is also instrumental to the initiative’s success as well as their childrens education. Thus they should be involved as per Rukmini. At the meeting. Narendra Modi also emphasised on arresting the school dropout rate. In 2014 alone, nearly 6 million children remained out of school. So all this problems along with other parameters are making the initiation of the initiative somewhat skeptical.
Source: goo.gl/yxpeil
