Nabin"s Mega Event of Children’s Day vs disastrous School education in Odisha

Nabin Patnaik’s  Mega Event of Children’s Day  vs   disastrous School education in Odisha

This Mega event  was pre-planned design of State Govt.  to divert  the attention of the people from educational issues affected millions of downtrodden children in the state

Dear friends

On the occasion of  observation of  Children’s Day  on 14.11.17,   Govt. of Odisha  organized  extravanza Mega  Event with participation of  approximate 6000  children in  Bhubaneswar , capital of Odisha  which  was addressed by  Chief Minister Sri Nabin Patnaik. It was telecast in all channels and Social Media glorifying   Chief Minister as  messiah  of the cause of  the children. Most  glorifying ( claimed by BJD)   part of  the  event  was   Sri Patnaik  addressed the  children  without written  documents  for first time during  his 17 years of  political career  as Chief Minister.  However his   delivering speech through teleprompter was exposed publicly.

Now the question comes why such type of Mega event was organized from state exchequer.  It was  organized  to cover up  inefficiency  of Sri Patnaik and failure of  State Govt.  to  improve primary education in Odisha   during 17 years of  his rule.   the Primary Education has been in doldrums   in Odisha.  Primary education has been pushed to 20 years back.  In spite of huge investment on education under central flagship programmes such as DPEP and SSA, and after 7 years of implementation of RTE Act 2009, the state of public education in Odisha is in deplorable condition. Only 3% of schools in Odisha are fully complying with RTE Act at the end of 2013-2014 financial years. Malkanagiri, Nabarangapur, Nuapada and Rayagada are the four districts with less than 1% schools fully complying with act (School Report Card, DISE-2013-14).

It was expected that after implementation of RTE Act, public education system in Odisha will be strengthened and enrolment in government schools will be increased. However, it is evident from the DISE data   that enrolment in government schools is decreasing.

It was also expected that after implementation of RTE act number of private school will be reduced. It is unfortunate that during last 6 years the number of private schools is increasing in Odisha. The detailed of the private schools has been given in the following table  .

All Private  and unrecognised  schools   

2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
4340	4356	4482	4724	5088

There are single teachers’ schools in Odisha which violates the RTE Act 2009. There is no proper rationalisation of posting of teachers. As a result some schools are having more than required number of teachers and some schools are having less than required number of teachers. There is no policy for teachers transfer in Odisha. Most of the teachers transfer happens in view of both bureaucratic and the political consideration. As a result there is rampant corruption in case of teachers transfer. This affects in ensuring quality education in the state.

Another disturbing fact is that there is no proper identification of out of school children in Odisha. As per the DISE data there were only 5000 out of school children in Odisha ( DISE 2014-15). However, as per the National Sample Survey, there are  4,01,052  out of school children in Odisha and most of them belongs to marginal communities such as tribal, dalits and minorities.   

   The learning level of children in schools is also very disturbing. As per ASER 8.8% children in Standard III cannot read letters in Odia. Similarly 21.1% children in standard III can read letters but not more than that.  22.5% can read words but not standard level or higher texts. 13.4% children in standard III can read standard I level text but not able to read their standard level text and only 33.4% can read standard II level text. 8.6% children in standard III cannot even recognize numbers from 1 to 9 and 28.9% children can recognize number of up to 9 but not more than that. 35.2% children cannot do subtraction, 21.3% cannot do division and only 6.9% children in standard II can do division (Source ASER 2014).

The disastrous  condition of  elementary  education is as follows.

Total no. of Government elementary school	53455
No. of schools  having no  toilets for boys	9439
No. of schools having  no toilet  for  girls	6267
No. of schools having  no clean drinking water  facility	1207
No. of schools have no electricity facilities	43308
No. of   schools have no playground.	42409
No. of elementary schools having  no ramp facilities	15538
No. of schools  have no boundary walls..	18300
No. of school having  no building till yet	373
No. of     elementary schools  having  single class room functioning under the schools and Mass Education Department in Odisha	2620

         

Pradip Pradhan

M-9937843482

Date- 19.11.17