Summer camps expose poor condition of education in Tripura

A Correspondent

Agartala: Summer camps organized by the School Education department in all the schools across the State once again exposed the poor condition of education in the State.

Soumma Gupta, Secretary of School Education department, had a bitter experience when she visited some of the schools at Ambassa along with some senior officials.

It was a surprise for the entire team when they found that even the students of class five or six don’t have preliminary knowledge. Sixty to 70 per cent of the students could not read Bengali and the percentage is more than 90 in case of English. Most of the students don’t have any idea of mathematics other than addition and substraction.

Disgusted with the performance of the schools located in the district head quarter, the team avoided visiting the schools in the rural areas. She later had a meeting with the School Inspectors of the district and expressed her dissatisfaction.

It is learnt that most of the School Inspectors also highlighted the difficulties and said that schools located in the rural areas hardly have any teacher for subjects like Mathematics, Science and English. It is the biggest hurdle for improving standard of education. They also pointed out to major shortage of infrastructure including communication facilities.

It is learnt that in reply to a quarry of the secretary, the Inspectors of Schools admitted that in most of the schools, the teachers are irregular. At the same time, they cited some difficulties including their housing facilities. A house on rent is also not available in most of the villages, they said.

After taking over as Education Minister, Ratan Lal Nath earlier conducted a sample survey to have an idea of the standard of education in the State which depicted a very poor picture. It said in some places students of class six or seven even can’t write their names properly.

The idea of holding summer camp in every school for 15 days during the summer vacation germinated from there. Teachers were asked to attend the camps and assured of compensatory leave. It is learnt that after having the bitter experience at Ambassa, the Education Secretary Soumma Gupta instructed all the schools to segregate the weaker students and to take special class.

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