New Dawn For School Education
- Part 3 -

H. Deleep / Ranjan Yumnam / W. Chandrakumar *

Director of Education (University and Higher Education) Building in Imphal in March 2013 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

Grant of Trained /Sr /Selection Grade scale: A team at Directorate led by a Senior Finance Officer has been working on war-footing mode for granting of Trained /Sr /Selection Grade scale to eligible teachers. There are bottlenecks as it involves pre-audits by Local Fund Department and subsequent concurrence of the Finance Department. Department is taking all necessary steps to institutionalize a more expeditious process to address this area of serious grievance in consultation with FD.

Academic Calendar: We were taken by surprise that Govt, schools are operating without an Academic Calendar. In the absence of a holistic academic calendar which is applicable to all the schools in the State, the timing and schedule of admission, vacation, and examination are at the whim of the individual school concerned leading to confusion and lack of co-ordination.

To fix this issue, the Department has recently constituted a Committee represented by all stakeholders to develop a holistic Academic Calendar which will be applicable to all schools. The Academic Calendar will also prescribe a common time for serving of mid-day meals in all schools to facilitate inspection by the Department officials.

Inspection system: When we joined the Department, inspection system was in the cold storage. We decided that it had to be revived. In our monthly staff meetings with our ZEOs and Principals, the modalities of the Inspection system were discussed. An agreed upon Inspection template finally emerged and was circulated to all the ZEOs, DIs and Als and they have started visiting the schools to check not merely the attendance of students and teachers but also implementation of Mid-Day Meal Scheme, SSA & RMSA. Inspection reports have started to come in and they are being analyzed for follow-up action.

Convergence of Education(S) and SSA/ RMSA: It is now more convenient that the Director of Education(S) is also the State Project Director of SSA and RMSA. There has been a convergence of all the activities of the Directorate of Education(S) and these flagship programmes. The earlier problem of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing is gradually narrowing.

(The SPD of SSA and RMSA will now take over the authorship of this article momentarily to place a brief report on SSA and RMSA in the following paras, after which we will pool our pens again for a final conclusion).

BUDGET FOR SSA AND ACHIEVEMENTS
(Not reflected in the State Budgetary outlay for the Department)

Some of the achievements are:
a. 335 new primary schools were opened.

b. Further, 380 Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) were upgraded to primary schools and 76 are under process.

c. 11 KGVBs and 9 Residential Schools are being opened. Construction works of most have begun and are in various stages of progress.

d. 258 primary schools were upgraded to upper primary schools.

e. 1951 Primary Teachers & 574 Upper Teachers were recruited.

f. There are plans to construct New Primary School, New Upper Primary School, Additional Classrooms and Ramps with Handrails.

g. However due to court cases, construction works have been halted. Govt, has moved the Hon'ble High Court and the Court's Order has been revoked less than a week back. All activities will now resume with renewed zeal.

BUDGET FOR RMSA AND ACHIEVEMENTS
(Not reflected in the State Budgetary outlay for the Department)

Budget Proposal for RMSA in respect of Manipur was placed before the PAB of MHRD on 12th June, 2013 for its consideration and the outcome is awaited. Some achievements are given below:

a. 202 Additional Classrooms, 167 Integrated Science Labs, 165 Computer Rooms, 95 Library Rooms, 224 Art and Craft Rooms and 224 Toilet Blocks have been constructed.

b. Construction of 296 Teachers Quarters are in progress in 76 Govt. Secondary Schools.

c. 116 Junior High Schools were upgraded to High Schools.

d. 492 Trained Graduate Teachers were recruited.

e. Recruitment of another 338 trained Graduate teachers is in final stage.

Conclusion

Coming back, we would like to wrap this article on a positive and motivational note. George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "You see things/and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?" This is exactly the attitude we will like to cultivate in the Department to achieve our goals and realise its vision.

Having said that, our final thoughts and perspective are in order, which is that:
It all boils down to EXECUTION
a) Whatever grandeur plans, vision and roadmap we may dream up, without execution, they will just remain what they are: dreams.
b) In order for the dreams to take wings and translate into reality, we need to prioritise the steps leading to our ultimate goal.
c) Clear steps for execution should be defined and we should be able to answer the following questions:
Who will do it?
When?
How?
Where will the fund (if required) come from?
When to monitor and by whom?

Allow us to let Walt Disney pitch in for us:
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them".

We would like to add that we peddle not just bubble dreams and courage, we also do have a plan and are working on it.
We will update you in the next issue. Till then, happy reading!

Concluded..