Many school teachers are working with full dedication and making efforts in providing good education to children, but the state budget for education is low and there is shortage of teachers in most government schools in Manipur on Monday.
The major limitations in government schools were pointed out by state Education Minister Thounaojam Basanta Kumar at the Science, Mathematics and Environment Exhibition in Imphal.
In view of it, he assured that the government will initiate measures to make up for the shortages at the earliest. It is high time to bring back the pride in teaching profession, he said.
“Education should not only be about producing position holders. Everyone should be encouraged to have basic education and dropout rate should be brought to the minimum. To facilitate all these, the government will be upgrading the government schools,” he said.
Stepping up in upgrading government schools, the minister said the Centre has sanctioned Rs 5 crore for opening a Command and Control Centre for state-level monitoring and tracking field-level academic and non-academic activities and to monitor and improve the performance of both teaching and non-teaching staff.
With this, Manipur will have facilities for monitoring not only the attendance of the staff but also how the teachers are engaging with the students and how the students are being taught, he said.
Pointing out that in remote hill areas, there are many school teachers who are working with full dedication, Basanta said the mechanism will help in recognising their efforts as well. A centralised monitoring mechanism will be set up to monitor the activities, he added.
The minister also pointed out that the budget for education in Manipur is low at only 9 per cent. Even in Delhi the budget for education is 25 per cent, he said, adding that a systematic education with adequate financial investments will go a long way in ushering in development.
Basanta further said that the government is planning to introduce a school mentorship programme where eminent personalities adopt, not financially, a government school in his/her locality to encourage students to become good human beings.
The education minister also announced that the IT Company ‘Infosys’ will provide infrastructures and technologies worth Rs 25 crore to enhance digital learning across schools in the state. The state will ink a memorandum of understanding with the company within next week, he added.
The four-day state-level Science, Mathematics and Environment Exhibition, 2021-22 is being organised on the theme ‘technology and toys’ by the department of Education (S) under NCERT, New Delhi at Johnstone Higher Secondary School, Imphal.
Altogether, 67 exhibitors including 26 males and 41 females from 38 schools took part in the state-level exhibition. It is said that the shortlisted 15 exhibitors, who won the top 3 prizes and consolation prizes will be recommended to NCERT for participation in the national-level exhibition.
