Question : Poor Teaching Standards

(a) whether the Government is aware of the poor teaching standards in the schools particularly in Government primary schools in rural areas;

(b) whether the educated and prosperous sections of the society are reluctant to get their children enrolled in Government schools due to the poor standard of education provided in these schools; and

(c) if so, the steps taken/being taken by the Government to improve the teaching standards in schools in all the States in the country including Maharashtra?

MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
(SMT. SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI)

(a) & (b): The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) conducts periodic national surveys of learning achievement of children in classes – III, V and VIII. Three rounds of National Achievement Surveys (NAS) have been conducted so far. These reveal improvement in learning achievement levels of pupils, in various subjects. No research study or indicator is available with the Government for finding out the socio-economic level of parents of the children enrolled in Government schools.

(c): Under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the State Governments and UT Administrations are supported on several interventions to improve teaching standards, including regular in-service teachers’ training, induction training for newly recruited teachers, training of all untrained teachers to acquire professional qualifications through Open Distance Learning (ODL) mode, recruitment of additional teachers for better pupil-teacher ratios, academic support for teachers through block and cluster resource centres, a continuous and comprehensive evaluation system to equip the teacher to measure pupil performance and provide remedial action wherever required, and teacher and school grants for development of appropriate teaching-learning materials, etc. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 specifies statutory duties and responsibilities of teachers and lays down the minimum qualifications for a person to be eligible for appointment as a teacher in elementary schools.

The Central Government has launched the ‘Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching’ in December, 2014 with a vision to comprehensively address all issues related to teachers, teaching, teacher preparation, professional development, curriculum design, research in pedagogy and developing effective pedagogy.

The Central government through SSA has supported States/UTs on early grade reading, writing & comprehension, and early mathematics programmes through a sub-programme namely ‘Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat’ (PBBB) in class I and II. Further the Government has launched Rashtriya Aavishkar Abhiyan (RAA) programme on 09.07.2015, inter alia, as a sub-component of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), to motivate and engage children of the age group from 6-18 years in Science, Mathematics and Technology through observation, experimentation, inference drawing, model building, etc. both through inside and outside classroom activities and processes. Under SSA, in Maharashtra, other than funding for PBBB & RAA programmes, Rs. 35 lakhs have been approved in 2015-16 for developing supplementary readers ten each in 4-5 tribal languages under Learning Enhancement Programme, and Rs. 35 lakhs per district has been approved under the head of Innovation for initiating school based/teacher led innovative practices using technology to improve learning outcomes of children in classes III- VIII.

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