New Delhi, July 30 (Inditop.com) State governments must give up their “chalta hai” (laid-back) attitude to improve the quality of education to take India to new heights, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said here Thursday.
The minister said there is up to 50 percent shortage of teachers in schools in various states.
Both vacancy and quality of teachers are concern areas, he said.
The Right to Education bill has underlined that teachers have to receive a certain degree of excellence in five years. The bill, which is already passed by the Rajya Sabha, will make education compulsory for students of the age group of six to 14 once it becomes a law. It has various provisions to boost elementary education too.
But the “states should not take five years for this. Chalta hai (laid-back) attitude should go. You must target to do it in one or two years,” he said addressing a meeting of elementary education secretaries from the various states.
“We need an element of uniformity of excellence and quality in school education system,” he said.
He exhorted the officials to bring a parity in excellence among all education boards. This will enable student from across the country to “compete with rest of the world”.
The minister once again clarified that he has not advocated to bring all school boards under one umbrella. He called for a uniformity of excellence rather than uniformity of education.
Diversity can be embraced while maintaining quality, Sibal said while underlining that the central government is extending a hand of friendship to the states as this is a matter which is to do with children.
“And together we must set out towards ensuring that our children march ahead of us.”
The minister said that state governments must prepare plans on how to monitor neighbourhood schools and teachers attendance. Currently teachers absenteeism is an alarming 19 percent.
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