The government school education sector in J&K, having the largest number of schools in the state with the highest number of children, mostly from rural areas, has improved prodigiously by providing the basic infrastructure to schools and the inadequacy, if any, is being identified for speedy restitution in a time-bound manner. The teacher qualifications are highest and so is the average pupil-teacher ratio, which is 1:10, hence a fervid inkling for better education of children. There are many schemes and scholarships for the children of government schools to support their education with. It is almost free of cost in the government sector with free textbooks, free uniforms for all the children, free meals and the fees which were a very meager amount has now been completely weaved off for female students. Notwithstanding all this, with notable exceptions, government schools lag far behind in providing quality education and the results are awfully poor. After an insightful analysis from an experience of over a decade, following suggestions may be of considerable help to augment the progress of school education sector.
Accountability and Monitoring: The efficiency of a system is a function of accountability and that in turn can be augmented by invoking implacable monitoring mechanisms. These monitoring mechanisms that effectuate accountability need to be made comprehensive enough to depict the real progress of the efforts put in place by each of the functionaries during their work. It shouldn’t be only for teachers but for all the stakeholders from top to bottom which may include the School heads, the Zonal Officers, and the District officers.
A comprehensive tracking mechanism may be devised for each of the officials for the amount of work done on monthly basis comparing the target assigned and the same is possible only by monitoring their work progress. The trackers, both academic and administrative, designed on the basis of certain key parameters and skills, can be updated by the in-charge head of the institution and from the inputs of the external monitoring team meant for the purpose. This mechanism shouldn’t be framed for a teacher alone but for all the government functionaries, including the headmaster/principal, the zonal and the district officers. Therefore, whenever a teacher fails for any of the key parameters in a school, it should get reflected in his monthly tracker and whenever detected, proper remedial measures, recommended by the resource persons who may be from the DIETs or the Academic Monitors, be taken to help the teacher to improve on time.
A multipronged monitoring mechanism for both academics and administration of schools should be put in place at different levels with a well-defined authorization from the authorities for their monitoring and assessment. Furthermore, the zonal or district officers who are primarily assigned the job of monitoring the school, have not been able to visit them on regular basis for monitoring purposes because they are burdened with a lot of work in their offices with meager manpower. The zonal education offices, particularly, with only two sanctioned non-teaching staff have not only to collect the information from the field about the different schemes but also to compile the same as being asked by the authorities on a daily basis, leaving a heavy burden upon the zonal offices. In comparison to the zonal offices, the higher secondaries with far less work are having the same sanction of employees as that of a zonal educational office where they have to manage a large number of schools and teachers. Therefore, the monitoring of schools suffers as the officers are unable to come out their offices and visit and assess the schools regularly, although they are continuously being asked for the same by the higher authorities. In my opinion, a separate team of academic experts may be designated for the monitoring and assessment of schools at zonal & district level with a well-defined authorization of the higher authorities. The monitors shall not only provide on the spot pedagogical inputs & academic support to the school but also assess/track the progress of teachers using different parameters. It is through the monitoring of schools that we can identify the problems of academics or administration of schools early and can provide remedial measures to rectify the same in time in order to save the precious time of students. This, in turn, can at the same time engender accountability in the system and certainly the system would become more efficient.
One such initiative has already been taken by the department of education in Kashmir wherein they designated four sedulous resource persons in each zone for the purpose of academic monitoring and support of schools in year 2017. The academic monitors, as they were named, were to not only monitor the academics in schools but also administer teacher- training programmes. They did a baseline assessment of all the students of their educational zones and provided on the spot training and academic support to each of the school. The follow-up of training programmes was done by the academic monitors with the idea that whether the teaching techniques and methodologies administered to the teachers are implemented in schools and how much help is being extended to those students who are struggling with minimum levels of learning. The establishment of this mechanism alone has, beyond doubt, improved the academics in each school by almost 30 to 40 percent which can be ascertained independently from each the school. However, the mechanism has not been taken with open arms, not for the reason that the mechanism has created a dearth of teachers in schools but because the mechanism tried to invoke accountability among the teachers and has created ripples within the administration where vested interests don’t want the system to get back on track. This mechanism of Academic Monitors tried to replace a system of resource persons who had been rendered mere clerks and peons in the zonal offices. Moreover, they used to be ten per zone which have been replaced with only four Academic Monitors in each zone, thus facilitating more teachers to the schools. The mechanism of Academic monitoring has neither been provided the basic financial support nor the much needed administrative support that could have made it, otherwise, a grand achievement.
Mapping of Students: The linking of students’ progress with teachers in each school is one such idea that would not only invoke accountability among the teachers but it will commendably improve the ownership of the system by them too. Each teacher of a school will have to adopt and own the responsibility of academic achievements of a particular number of students depending upon the pupil-teacher ratio in a school. This idea has popped up earlier in the department and even innovation cell of directorate had been galvanizing the authorities to implement the same. not only this but the mapping of students had been completed in some districts but couldn’t get the official nod of the department and it has been in derelict since then because of the fact that it would have invoked responsibility among the teachers.
Rationalization of Staff & Transfer Policy: In order to make the monitoring and mapping of students done effectively, the schools need to be provided adequate staff besides the other infrastructural facilities. There is no dearth of teaching staff in J&K having an average pupil-teacher ratio of 1:10 which is better than many other states of the country. Therefore, the rationalization of staff is a must in the sector as the teachers are huddled in the schools located along the roadside and in towns thus creating factiously a severe shortage of staff in rural and far-flung areas. This can be ascertained from the fact that in zone Vailoo of district Anantnag, it will be hard to find a middle school, having more than 150 students and nine classes, with 4 teachers. Most of the primary, middle and high schools in the far-flung areas suffer from the want of teachers while as most of the schools in towns or along the roadside have an excess of the staff. The other side of the story is in the schools located along the national highway and town of Bijbehara where huddling of staff is such as one primary school having six teachers for no student at all. Therefore, under such a situation, the rationalization of staff has become indispensable for the progress of the school education sector. The rationalization and transfer of staff should be well insulated from the political and bureaucratic influence. The transfer policy should be framed in such a manner that a teacher has to serve successively in the zone I, II & III for two years each keeping their qualifications into consideration and proper incentives should be provided to them for the time they serve in the zone III. The Rets, who remain stagnant at one place for decades, need to be transferred with some suitable mechanism, even though it may happen on point to point basis, so that they may get away with the boredom of stagnation and feel refreshed due to the exposure of new situations.
Leadership and Promotions: The basic problem that is plaguing the education system is administrative ineffectiveness which is a repercussion of the quality of academic leaders at various levels. A change in a system is possible through leaders as they make the things happen but the leaders aren’t chosen based on their competitiveness or skills rather on the numbers of years they have at their back. A person may have no talent or skill and is not fit for the academic administration but on the basis of seniority, he still gets promoted and placed at the helm of affairs. This happens usually at a time when they are on the verge of retirement and lack skills and energy and are beset by the issues of health and family problems. This has been detrimental to the cause of promoting quality education. Therefore, the need of the hour is to introduce some departmental examination for promotions of academic administrators. They should be made interne in top most educational institutions of the country for training and exposure.
SIE &DIETs: The state and district institutes of training should act as resource centers where research and training facilities are available for assessing the problems of teaching and learning in the field. The faculty/resource persons in the SIE and DIETs should be resourceful enough to galvanize the teachers for their performance which is pivotal requirements of their assignment. The training programmes should be imparted by the DIET faculty at district level rather than deploying teachers from the schools as resource persons. The need of the hour is to rejuvenate DIETs and SIE for their real purpose of augmenting schools for achieving academic excellence rather than acting as a graveyard for the slackers of the department.
Teacher Education & Follow-up of Training: Mere conducting and imparting training programmes won’t help in any way unless follow-ups and monitoring of the same are done continuously. By doing this we would be saving a lot of resources that otherwise get wasted for the want of the implementation the training programmes. The training programmes that were imparted from last few years in the department of education particularly SEF (Simple Education Foundation) & Pratham training modules were not followed-up for their successful implementation in the schools which has rendered them useless. The E-learning training programs should focus more on basic skills of MS Office, MS Excel and other necessary programmes that are needed on daily basis in schools. There should be arrangements for providing on spot academic support and pedagogical inputs in schools for effectively transferring skills of teaching and learning rather than mere imparting training in a theoretical manner in training institutes.
‘Merging’ & ‘Clubbing’ Of Schools: There are some primary and middle schools where enrolment has declined sharply and also not very distant from each other, need to be merged together instead of simply clubbing them as has been done in the present regime. It is because the clubbed schools have to manage their resources separately and that it consumes a lot of manpower and resource in the process.
Decentralization of Schools: The schools should be decentralized in certain specific areas so that they may manage the school resources better and function as per the requirements of the local circumstances. The headmaster of the school should be empowered to decide upon the local holidays, textbooks from among the prescribed ones and the uniforms. This seems indispensable at a time when schools suffer for the want of normal instructional days and their performance decline by not getting sufficient time to complete the syllabus mainly because of hartals. The middle school headmaster should be empowered enough to punish or appreciate the teachers for their conduct or performance in a school.
These are some prominent grey areas in the school education department that if addressed on time would help to bring the derailed system back on track. The government of J&K invests a lot of public money upon the sector without getting much in return mainly because of the political and bureaucratic moral bankruptcy whose unjust interference in the department has created myriad problems over the years for the sector. The major proportion of students enrolled in government school education sector belong to the disadvantaged section of the society who should collectively rise to the occasion and press for bringing transparency and accountability in the department. There are some vested interests who don’t want the government education sector flourish and that they should be identified and defeated for the sake of protecting the future of our children.
{The author a freelancer . Views are his own }