Education officers should take strict measures to improve quality of education in school: Minister Pandey
Under the chairmanship of Education Minister Mr. Arvind Pandey, a review meeting of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan and Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan was held at Secretariat meeting hall on Thursday. Education Minister issued instructions to prepare a report regarding the directions issued by the honorable High Court that price of the others books being introduced by certain private schools affiliated with should not be more than NCERT books and apprise the honorable High Court and government. For this, the Education Minister issued directions to appoint one Nodal officer each in Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar.
Additional State Project Director Dr. Mukul Sati in Dehradun, Joint Director Education Raghunath Lal Arya in Nainital, Joint Director Bhupendra Negi in Haridwar and Deputy Director Anand Bhardwaj in Udham Singh Nagar have been appointed Nodal Officers.
Education Minister said that education is an important subject and hence there should not be a strike in the education department. Departmental officials should constantly keep monitoring this. He issued instructions regarding the orders issued in the past pertaining to the merger of schools having student strength less than 10 with the nearby schools, re-investigation should be conducted in certain suspected cases. He said that after this decision, the reality of the increase in the number of students in certain schools should be re-investigated. He instructed the education officers to take strict measures to improve the quality of education in the school. He told the officers that keeping in view the interest of education they should not hesitate from taking tough decisions.
Education Minister instructed Additional Secretary, School Education Ravneet Cheema to continuously inspect the schools of the state. He instructed to adopt e-tendering process for the construction of school buildings so that the quality of the buildings is good. Also, he ordered to include the provision in the MOU that contractor, who has constructed the building, will take care of its maintenance for 15 years.
Education Minister issued instructions to ensure good quality in the work of computer and networking under the ICT scheme in schools approved by the Government of India besides qualitative work in innovative activities, Yoga, band competition, career counselling, graphic arts, mathematics, English spelling wizard, tour of other states, art etc. Education Minister has issued instructions to take special care of quality in the reconstruction of the approved 140 primary schools and repair of 204 schools. On this occasion, through a presentation, Additional State Project Director Samagra Shiksha Dr. Mukul Sati informed that union government has sanctioned Education Department a budget of Rs 1055.05 crores for the financial year 2018-19, which has last year spill over of Rs 224.20 crores and Rs 8308.05 crores for new projects. In the budget, Rs. 582.67 crore for primary education, Rs. 166.87 crore for secondary education and Rs. 81.31 crore for teacher education has been approved. In the year 2018-19, smart classes are to be set up in 474 schools. Under the ICT project, facility of computers and networking has to be provided in 642 new schools, 500 secondary schools of past years and 62 Upper Primary Schools.
Secretary Education Dr. Bhupendra Kaur Aulakh, Director General Education Alok Shekhar Tiwari, Additional Secretary Education Ravneet Cheema, Director Secondary/Primary Education Rakesh Kumar Kunwar, Director Academic Seema Jaunsari, Additional State Project Director Samagra Shiksha Dr. Mukul Kumar Sati, Additional Director Ram Krishna Uniyal etc. were present in the meeting.