Education department comes under united opposition attack; Minister Pegu cushions the blow

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The opposition parties went hammer and tongs against the Education Department in the house today. Education Minister Dr Ranoj Pegu, however, cushioned the blow.

Moving a cut motion on the supplementary demand for the Education Department, Leader of Opposition (LoP) Debabrata Saikia said, “According to the UDISE, the school dropout rate in Assam is much higher than the national level, and the percentage of enrolment in the secondary level is very low. The state has 2,633 single-teacher primary schools. Hundreds of schools in the state have no drinking water facility, no separate washrooms for girls, no library, no proper fields, etc.”

Saikia further said, “The process of teaching and learning gets affected in the primary schools as multiple classes go on in one hall due to lack of separate classrooms. This is not all. As many as 24,000 schools in the state have no computer and internet facility, and many higher secondary schools lack science laboratories despite the Centre providing funds. The paucity of teachers is the common ailment from the primary to the secondary schools.”

Rafiqul Islam of the AIUDF said, “The department merged around 8,000 schools due to lack of students. If the schools don’t have teachers, why will the parents send their children to government schools? This has led to the 14 per cent increase in the number of private schools in the state. The state also witnessed the decline of nine per cent of government schools. The department employs two teachers for one primary to impart education to students of five to six classes. Is it possible? You provide a midday meal, school uniform, etc. If there is a lack of teachers, why will parents send their wards to government schools?”

MLA Akhil Gogoi said, “Primary schools should have separate rooms for all classes. How will children learn in chaos?”

Abdul Batin Khandakar of the Congress said, “Around 21,000 LP schools have no partitions to separate classes. When two teachers teach two classes, the students of the other three classes have to sit idle.”

Ashraful Hussain of the AIUDF said, “The scarcity of teachers is one of the causes of decay in education. Thousands of teachers’ posts have been lying vacant. The situation is even worse in the SAR areas.”

In his reply, Dr Pegu said, “The ratio of government and private schools in the state is 69:31. The situation is not the way the opposition is trying to paint it. The dropout rate in the state has come down to 17.5 per cent from 29 per cent earlier. Likewise, the enrolment in the secondary stage is higher than before. We’ve appointed 10,000 teachers in the past few months, and the appointment process of 4,000 more teachers is at the final stage. We’ll publish an advertisement in December to fill up around 5,000 more posts for teachers. The teacher-student ratio in the state is almost even. The problem lies in the fact that the teachers are reluctant to go to SAR areas. To solve this problem, the Chief Minister advised the department to appoint teachers in their nearby schools in remote areas.”

The minister further said that the government spent around Rs 3,000 crore for the development of lower and upper primary schools’ infrastructure and built 400 new buildings for higher secondary schools, costing around Rs 2,000 crore. “We’re going to start smart classes in high and higher secondary schools from March next. Apart from this, we are going to introduce skill-honing courses in different trades at the school level. We’re making strides towards holistic education,” he said.

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