Says ‘politicization’ the no.1 reason for poor performance of govt schools
While reiterating its earlier demand for abolition of the post of Principal Director of the Department of School Education (DoSE), Nagaland, the Rising People’s Party (RPP) has maintained that the department’s Advisor/UDA coalition should take the call.
Saying that while the “thoroughly unconvincing clarification of the outgoing Principal Director (PD) regarding the poor performance of government schools is still welcome,” the RPP insisted that it awaits the response of the Advisor of DoSE/UDA Coalition to address the issue of abolition of the post of PD.
Ridiculing the PD’s clarification, RPP dismissed the latter’s COVID-19 “excuse” for the department’s “worst performance in 6 years,” saying that it takes the cake for the “worst excuse of the year.”
Related: Nagaland School Edu Dept responds to demand for abolition of post of Principal Director
RPP reminded the PD that the pass percentage in government high schools over the last years is consistently the same, with 2022 being slightly worse, “which means the reason for the abysmal condition of our education is somewhere else.”
RPP highlighted that the pass percentage in 2017 was 42.60%, followed by 40.77% in 2018, 43.32% in 2019, 47.40% in 2020, 44.86% in 2021 and finally 36.62% in 2022.
RPP went on to say that the “no.1 reason” for the poor performance of government schools is the “politicization of bureaucracy,” which it said includes the “PD system, the so-called attachment of teachers to VIPs/SDEOs/DEOs, proxy teaching system, etc.”
RPP further said that while the PD post “must have been en-cadred by the Ministry of Personnel as explained by the outgoing PD,” it retorted that the post “can be abolished” by the state government and stated that it should be done so immediately.
“Once the PD post is abolished, the Director of DoSE will exercise full powers and responsibilities, and since the Director is a departmental cadre officer, the default reasoning is that he/she will give their best as they have risen through the ranks as teachers initially,” RPP reasoned. It went on to say that the Advisor for the DoSE should address this burning issue immediately.
“For the PD’s information, the DoSE is a department with the highest number of government employees, more than 26000 and for the PD to make the wild claim that there are no sufficient eligible officers for the posts of SDEOs and DEOs is an insult to all the employees and officers of the department,” RPP further said. “Perhaps this attitude of the PD and his inability is the reason why this department has gone to the dogs,” it added.
Further saying that there are other important reasons galore, RPP asked, “What is the department’s policy with regard to proxy teachers? Has it adopted “Zero tolerance” measures?” RPP also raised the issue of teachers attached to VIPs/SDEOs/DEOs “where thousands of teachers” are concentrated only in district headquarters, ‘dual service teachers’, excess teachers, etc. which it said has profoundly affected the foundation of lakhs of students.
“Again, if the reason for the deficit of Assistant Headmasters and Headmasters is because of the ‘court cases between different groups of teachers’ as cited by the PD, then it only highlights the poor management of the department by the HoD, AHoD and the Advisor,” RPP claimed.
RPP concluded that it is important to understand that government school students have a very weak foundation because of this “politicization” of the DoSE by the state government, which it said is basically the government playing with the students’ lives.