How alert is the District Education Department about performance of government-aided schools running under its nose?
Not much, going by the ground reality: it takes an application under the Right To Information (RTI) Act to make the department realise that there are some aided schools in the city where less than 20 per cent of students who appeared for the Class X Boards last year passed the examination.
Following the RTI application, filed by one Raja Ram Jatav, a Banda resident, the department ‘realised’ that eight aided schools here are drawing teachers’ salaries worth lakhs every month but their pass percentage is below 20.
On Thursday, the district secondary education department served notices on managers of all eight schools and asked them to take appropriate action against non-performing teachers. In a significant first, the school managers have also been asked to inform the department with an action-taken report within two weeks.
The worst performer among the eight schools is Rastriya Udyog Ashram, Matiyari, where only 4.25 per cent students cleared the Class X Boards, conducted for the 2005-06 session (see box for details).
Taking instance of one of these schools, Jatav asked the Education department whether it was aware of other such aided schools with poor pass percentages, and about action, if any, taken against the erring institutions.
The RTI query prompted the officials to ask aided schools in the city to send in their results for the past academic session.
Asked why no action was taken against non-performing teachers in these schools till date, officials said though the government pays the teachers’ salaries in aided schools, the institutions are not directly under the department’s control.
“The most we can do in this regard is write a letter to the manager and in-charge of the school to take action against non-performing teachers,” District Inspector of Schools Vikas Sirvastava told Newsline.
However, most often the school mangers “do not give any attention to performance of the teachers”. Result: the teachers, even when they do not put in any effort to enhance the school’s results, “go scot-free”, the DIOS said.
But, interestingly, “it is for the first time that we have asked school managers to inform us about the action taken, and within two weeks,” Srivastava said.
But the notices have been served on the basis of 2005-06 Board examination results. With barely a month left for 2006-07 examinations, they are seen more as a formality, for there is little time to initiate any action, at least in the ongoing session.
