Education-Tasveer

Kapil Sibal Meets with Education Ministers of Bihar, UP and W. Bengal

Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today held one to one separate meetings with the HRD Minister for Bihar, Shri Hari Narayan Singh, the Basic Education Minister for Uttar Pradesh, Shri Dharam Singh Saini and the West Bengal Minister for School Education, Shri Partho Dey to discuss teacher related issues with reference to the 'Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009' in these States.

The State Ministers underlined the need for additional funds to fulfill the RTE requirements. Shri Sibal assured the States of all possible support for implementation of the Act.

Shri Sibal impressed upon the three Ministers the need for recruiting qualified and trained elementary school teachers. He under scored the need for rational redeployment of teachers to fulfill pupil teacher ratio (PTR) mandated by the RTE. All three States on their part stated that State rules have been drafted and would be notified soon.

It was decided that the two year diploma in primary education (DPE) run by IGNOU for Bihar and UP teachers would be suitably revised to address the concerns on quality. Bihar informed that the academic authority for the State as per section 29 of RTE, would be the SCERT, Bihar. The State has already prepared the curriculum and re-written books for classes I, III and V which are being trialed.

For West Bengal, a specific issue raised during discussion was the need to transit from the present structure of I to IV as primary and V to X as part of secondary to the three tier structure of I to V as primary, VI to VII as upper primary and IX to X in secondary. The West Bengal Minister stated that the State had commissioned a study by IIM Kolkota to give a road map for education for the State. This issue is also to be studied as part of the report which would be submitted in November. West Bengal also informed that they are setting up more upper primary schools to correct the existing skewed ratio between and primary and upper primary in the State.