Safeguard Primary Education: Assam State Primary Teachers’ Association

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Assam State Primary Teachers’ Association (ASPTA) has organized a two-day Education Convention in Guwahati beginning on Saturday, aiming to highlight the crisis confronting public primary education in Assam and to explore measures to address the situation.

On the first day, noted intellectual Dr. Hiren Gohain, eminent educationist and litterateur Dr. Dinesh Baishya, writer and thinker Mayur Bora, and essayist Dr. Pradyumna Goswami addressed the gathering. They alleged that government policies have systematically pushed public primary education towards decline. The speakers urged the government to withdraw anti-public education measures and instead create a conducive environment for teachers to teach and students to learn, thereby strengthening government primary schools.

They emphasized that only through mother-tongue medium public primary education ensuring 100 percent literacy can Assam achieve socio-economic progress and safeguard its identity.

The declaration identified key reasons behind the steady decline in student enrolment leading to closure of schools, including assigning teachers non-academic and data-entry work outside classrooms. Among the seven major resolutions placed before the convention were: stopping the engagement of teachers in non-teaching duties; amending the Right to Education (RTE) Act to ensure teacher appointments based on class-wise requirements without arbitrary teacher rationalization; restoring the academic session from January to December; conducting the Lower Primary Scholarship Examination annually; creating the post of head teacher in every primary school; and forming a seven-member committee to suggest measures for revitalizing public primary education.

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