Stress on promotion of digital education, teaching skills: CM

Amaravati: The expert panel stated that the infrastructure in public schools is in poor condition and teaching practices are defective. Hence, there is a need to improve teaching skills, suggested Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy during a meeting with officials at the Secretariat on Tuesday.

The panel on 'Reformation in Education System' explained its recommendations to the Chief Minister. Prof. N Balakrishnan, Chairman of the Committee, gave a presentation on the measures to be taken by the government to strengthen the educational system.

Enrolment of students in the government schools is only 49.28 per cent. When it comes to student registration in private schools, it is 43 per cent and this is the highest in the world. Despite this, there is no transparency and no proper monitoring in the private education institutions. There is significant need to improve private teacher training institutions.

The recommendations stated that a huge amount should be invested for digital education and teachers should be trained for the same. The committee has set goals for the next five years and said that measures should be taken to ensure that every child between 6 and 16 years should study in schools.

Student Learning Outcome should be increased by 8 per cent every year and a third party confirmation should conducted. There should be no student dropouts at high school level and students should complete the 10th class. The gap should be reduced between urban and rural students in the society and there should be no social and economic barriers.

All government schools should have infrastructure and digital facilities. Campaign should be conducted to increase writing and reading skills. To see that no student from tribal areas drops out from schools, an assessment tracking should be done on each student.

The panel recommended reduction in weight of school bags. It also suggested that there should be vocational education from eighth grade. As English medium is being implemented for 1 to 8 grade students in every school from next year, all the teachers should be trained for the same.

There must be an assessment on the expertise of teachers. Compulsory free education should be implemented till Intermediate and all the high schools should be upgraded to Intermediate colleges.

The panel also suggested merging of the SSC and Intermediate Boards and that they be brought under one Commissioner. All schools shall follow SERT syllabus. A set of guidelines should be prepared for the teachers working in unaided schools. There should be a council for the management of Gurukul Schools and a corporation for Digital Education. District Collector should hold review meetings every month.

The committee hailed Chief Minister Y S Jagan's initiatives to develop educational system and for introducing schemes like Amma Vodi and Navaratnalu. It also lauded the steps being taken by the government on implementation of the Right to Education Act.

The panel strongly supported the establishment of Commissions for control and supervision of higher education in schools. So far, the committee members have met six times and toured at the field level several times. The expert committee said that a heavy amount has to be spent on strengthening government education system.