School Education minister, Tokheho Yepthomi has said that the School Education department, which has been faced with myriad of problems, needed a total overhaul and revamp.
In a statement, Tokheho said “if a reputable standard was to be set and maintained, the entire system needed to be revamped.”
While not denying that there have been huge numbers of proxy teachers all over the state, Tokehho said the other problem was that most of the teachers were attached to various district and sub-division offices. He said the directorate along has 74 teachers attached to its office. In addition to this, some of the upgraded schools have very little or no enrolment, he added.
Tokehho said despite having 11000 teachers, both at elementary and higher sections, there has been hue and cry over poor results in government schools.
On the other hand, he said since most of the school management committees/boards did not want to be inspected by officials, viewing interference by the department as undesirable, communitisation of schools were not very encouraging. “The problem of misuse of sanctioned funds and non-submission of UCs are among the biggest bottlenecks in delivering the goods to the grassroots,” he stated.
He further highlighted the issue of Hindi teachers appointed under Centrally Sponsored Scheme (language teachers), RMSA and SSA schemes.
Tokehho informed that the four states including Nagaland availed the Hindi teachers’ scheme with the financial year 2016-17 being the terminal year/end date. Accordingly, Centre had decided to discontinue the scheme and was conveyed to the concerned states on March 8, 2017. He further said that there was every possibility to discontinue the RMSA and SSA schemes in due course of time, unless the government and the concerned citizens were careful in the management of the schemes. Tokheho said once centrally sponsored schemes are discontinued, the state government will be bound to take over and face a difficult time due to the financial problems of the state.
He said unless elected members, concerned citizens and school managing committee/boards come together to effectively cleanse the menaces, the government alone cannot take the responsibility.
Asserting that the department was fully equipped to take corrective measures with the help of GIS mapping, PIMS, he said the cohesive efforts of all stake holders will enable the department styep ahead to revolutionize the existing system.