Precarious Condition of Primary Education Essay

The status of the primary education given in the ZP run schools of the backward districts of Dhule & Nandurbar is a big mess & the administrators of both the Zilla Parishads are seem to be at their wits end because of the irresponsible teachers, & negligent staff. The trouble is doubled recently because of the increasing number of drunkard teachers who hardly attend the school & whenever they turn up they come up in dead drunk state. There have been incidences where the frustrated villagers have locked up the school after seeing that the deputed teachers don’t attend the school for weeks, & if at all they attend the school turn by turn. The headmasters, the teachers & the staff of the schools are hand in gloves in the conspiracy of absence from the school & whenever the authorities pay a surprise visit they try to cover up the matter. The CEO of Dhule ZP, Deependrasingh Kushwah last week suspended the headmasters of two schools & issued show cause notices to the staff teachers of two schools on account of the serious discrepancies in the number of students dubiously enrolled & the actual number of the students in these schools. Many schools in the mountain area of these districts are single teacher schools because the staff appointed never joins the duty & if at all join it is only on the paper. The teachers use their political connections & also grease the palms of the responsible officers to cancel their transfers to unwanted places in the hilly terrains of Shirpur, Dhadgaon, Taloda, Akkalkuwa, Shahada Tehsils of Dhule & Nandurbar districts. The level of the education & the training of the teachers amongst the ZP run schools is another problem & one doubts if the teachers have really complied the eligibility criterion for the appointment as a teacher. Sometime back when he was a CEO of ZP Dhule, Purushottam Bhapkar inspected some of the ZP run schools & was surprised to see that the teachers could not spell the simple word †Week†, they could not write correctly the spellings of the weekdays, many could not count beyond 100 & were unable to remember the tables beyond 10. The increasing number of alcohol addicted teachers in ZP school is another menace in these schools these days & in a recent Nandurbar ZP meeting the sitting standing committee member & Nandurbar District BJP president Nagesh Padwi raised this serious issue & appealed the administration & the standing committee chairman Jipalsingh Rawal to take serious action against the teachers found drunk in the school. Such is the peril of the incidences of drunken teachers attending the school that the demand of keeping alcohol test kit in ZP schools is tabled in this meeting by the members. Nandurbar ZP has decided to go for Dress Code for the teachers in ZP school so that the misbehaving teacher could be noticed. There is a demand from the villagers & the parents of the students where these schools are, to keep a biometric instrument which will keep the record of the attendance of the teachers & staff so that the defaulters could be brought to books. The members of the standing committee also pointed out in this meeting that there are many schools running in the district only on paper & the authorities also have a record of such schools but because of the political influence, interference no action is taken on the teachers & the staff involved. The members of ZP, the administration claim that it is the teachers & staff of the school having the backing from the political leaders of the districts, is responsible for the rack & ruin of the education in these schools. Overall the situation of the primary education & the ambitious Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Scheme of the government in ZP run schools of Dhule & Nandurbar Districts is really a weltering one. ———————————————————————————————-