Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS) demands separate education policy for (BTC) Bodoland Territorial Council

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, July 30: The Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS) has demanded a separate medium wise education policy for the schools located in BTC to patronize the vernacular medium of instructions. The BSS raised the demand after conducting a series of consultations and awareness programmes with the theme, ‘Teachers Meet’, which was organized from July 11 to 30 across four administrative districts of BTAD.

The BSS and the Department of Education, BTC observed that a large number of Bodo medium School in both elementary and secondary level have been crippled with various problems. In a release, BSS general secretary Prasanta Boro said, “The Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) has been decreasing day by day and the process of amalgamation and merger of schools have challenged the existence of the schools.”

Interacting with the representatives from various quarters, the BSS stressed that the gross enrolment of Bodo Medium Schools has been decreasing tremendously in every year. “A large numbers of schools having poor PTR are likely to be merged and extinct from the villages”, the general secretary said. Expressing concern over the challenges, the BSS demanded to fill up all the vacant posts with qualified teachers at the earliest. “Science and Mathematics teachers’ posts may be filled up from the gross vacant posts lying in both the elementary and secondary schools,” the BSS further said.

During the meeting, it was unanimously decided to conduct enrolment drive in consultation with the head teachers, School Management Committee (SMC), School Management and Development Committee (SMDC), BSS, ABSU, ABPTA and ABWWF. Meanwhile, the dignitaries of the meeting also decided to form a co-ordination committee comprising the representatives of Education Department, BTC and BSS to review the academic progress of BTC from time to time.

The meetings were organized in 17 educational blocks of BTAD. The series of meeting was largely attended by the Teachers, SMC, SMDC, eminent educationists, departmental officers, executive members of the BTC, Minister and MLA, ABSU, All Bodo Primary teachers’ Association (ABPTA), All Bodo Women Welfare Federation (ABWWF) and the so on. The inaugural meeting was held at the Debargaon HS School, Kokrajhar. Dy Chief of BTC Khampa Borgoyary was the Chief Guest of the occasion and the series of teachers Meet was inaugurated by the Director of Education, BTC, Rabisankar Borgoyary.