‘Teacher-on-call’ scheme: Retired teachers will teach in primary schools

More than 200 schools in western Odisha are without a permanent headteacher

Following is a report from the Sambad:

KISS Balangir branch to function from July

Following is a report from the Pioneer

The Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS) will open its branch at Balangir which would start functioning from July next year.   This was announced to mediamen at Balangir on Sunday by KIIT and KISS founder Dr Achuyt Samant. A total of 1,500 students from Balangir district are reading in the KISS at Bhubaneswar. In the proposed school, education from class I to X would be imparted and 1,200 students will be able to read here. Land has been purchased at Jalia in Balangir-Titilagarh road, Dr Samant informed.  Earlier, Dr Samant addressed a huge rally of tribals on the occasion of Birsa Munda Jayanti at Titilagarh.

Centenary celebration of Mission boys’ U.P. school, Balangir

Following is a report from the Sambad:

Prithwiraj High school Balangir in moribund state

Following report is TNIE:

Prithwiraj High school of Balangir, one of the oldest educational institutions in the State, is in moribund condition due to poor management and negligence of the authorities concerned.

Established in 1916, the school has produced more than 10 top students in HSC examination. Its science laboratory used to be an ideal one which was visited by many scholars from the State and outside.

But the school presents a different picture now. The science laboratory and library are closed and the main library has not been used for more than 10 years. There is no power supply to the school for more than four years though all outstanding bills have been cleared.

The school is running without a single toilet though it needs at least 12 toilets considering the student strength. There is no urinal even for the lady teachers. As the drainage system in the school has been damaged, water logging assumes acute proportion during rainy season.

Due to space constraint, students and teachers face a lot of difficulties during examination. Though PWD department has constructed four new classrooms, those are yet to be handed over to school authorities.

While lack of drinking water supply is another major constraint, the students are not willing to keep their cycles in the cycle stand in the absence of adequate security measures.

Biswajit Dash, an old student of the school, said the science laboratory of the school was a modern one. “Our teachers allowed us to experiment in the laboratory. We had also computer facilities in the school,” Dash said.

Admitting the deterioration of infrastructure of the school, District Education Officer Sanjiv Kumar Singh said the library needs some new books and the laboratory upgradation. Regarding drainage and toilet facilities, he said they were trying their best for the development of the school.

Plus two toppers from western Odisha

Following report is from the Sambad:

 

45,000 teacher posts vacant in Odisha: Sikhyak Mahasangh

Following is a report from express-buzz:

BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government has been able to arrest the high dropout rate of schoolchildren, it has failed to fill up the huge vacancy of teachers at  primary level.

 While the Government claimed that nearly 35,000 teacher posts are lying vacant at primary level, sources in Sikhyak Mahasangh said that the number would be more than 45,000. With many primary schools reeling under shortage of teachers, the existing teachers are shouldering the extra burden. Apart from trained teachers, there is shortage of headmasters and headmistresses too.   Sources in the All Utkal Primary School Federation said more than 21,000 schools do not have headmaster/headmistress and there are many single teacher schools in many districts. A high-level meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, decided in December last year to recruit 17,543 sikhya sahayaks. Necessary instruction was issued to the district collectors to go for recruitment in a transparent manner. Though advertisements were issued and applications received, recruitment of teachers was stalled without any reason.

Sarva Sikhya Abhijan (SSA), a flagship programme of the Centre for universalisation of elementary education, was launched in 2001 with an objective to provide education to children in the age group of 6-14 in a time-bound manner.  The other aim of the programme was to retain all the school-going children by 2010. The State has no doubt made a significant achievement by reducing the  dropout rate from a high of 52.41 per cent in 2002-03 to 3.1 per cent in 2011-12. The number of out- of-school children came down from 10 lakh to 0.31 lakh during the same period. Besides, gender gap in primary enrolment has  narrowed down. Meanwhile, the State Government has decided to open more schools in tribal sub-plan area so as to provide schooling to children near their villages and hamlets. If necessary, norms regarding number of children, required for opening a school, will be relaxed for tribal areas having inadequate communication infrastructure, official sources said.

Under the annual action plan for 2012-13, a budgetary provision of ` 3,679 crore has been made in which SSA component is around  ` 3,571 crore, National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL) accounts for ` 18 crore and Kasturaba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) component is ` 89 crore. While the Centre is sharing the bulk of expenditure under SSA, the State Government should have no problem in filling up the vacant posts, said a functionary of the teachers’ federation.

54000 schools to be upgraded to model status in Odisha

Following is a report from TOI:

BHUBANESWAR: About 54,000 schools in the state are slated to boast the status of model schools from November 30, with 33 components to be incorporated in each school to make them environment and child friendly. A replica of the model school or ‘Ama Vidyalaya’ was presented at the ongoing Survi-2011 children’s festival.

“The model school here is really nice and beautiful. But my school is still the old one. It would be really great if it can also have these facilities,” said Somnath Patra at the festival, a student from Keonjhar district.

“Each school has been given a particular amount of money to make the necessary changes to convert it into a model school or Ama Vidyalaya, the deadline for which has been fixed for November 30. The replica here will give the grassroots functionaries a clear picture of the concept,” said a senior officer of school and mass education department here.

Schools making the transition to their model version will have a boundary wall, garden, play material like swing, see-saw, etc. The boundary walls will sport school information board, financial display board, idea box, height measurement scale, etc. A model school verandah will display the name of the members of the school cabinet and a toll free helpline number.

The model school classrooms have been designed in a beautiful manner, keeping the needs of teachers and students in mind. Each of the four walls are designated for different purposes. While one wall will sport the blackboard, the other three will be students’ wall, teachers’ wall and Barnali wall, displaying activity based learning elements / pictures for the students. The students’ wall will have two boards — Ama Kama and Ame Taraka Mane. In Ama Kama children will display the classroom work or project work done by them, including creative works like drawings, crafts, etc. In Ame Taraka Mane (We the Stars), the board will be used by teachers to appreciate and acknowledge children’s talent, participation, contribution in curricular and co-curricular activities by writing their names on the board. The children may be selected as stars in a weekly rating, based on their behaviour towards classmates and seniors, attendance, and academic and co-curricular activities.

Chandra Sekhar Behera Zilla School, Sambalpur

Following is an old picture of  CSB Zilla School. This picture is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilla_School:

Mother tongue based multilingual education: Kosli language as a medium of instruction in the schools of western Odisha

Following paragraph is taken from http://www.ciil.org/AnnMLE2011.aspx.

 …………….Two states in India – Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Orissa – have started mother tongue based multilingual education (MLE) on a pilot basis for tribal children. AP started MLE in 8 tribal mother tongues (MTs) in 2004 and Orissa in 10 tribal MTs in 2006. The states have the program in over 500 schools with first batch of children in grades IV and V, respectively, in AP and Orissa; AP is adding over 2300 schools in the year 2011 and Orissa is scheduled to add 500 schools. Few more states are also expected to join the MLE movement in India. Jharkhand, Assam and Chhattisgarh are already planning to start MLE in the states. Mother tongue based MLE is now an international movement especially for those from dominated minor, minority and marginalized languages and suffering negative consequences of submersion and assimilation forms of education in non-mother tongue languages ……………………….

The above thing is an eye opener for all of us. This is a good start by the government. Along this line Kosli language should be used as the medium of instruction in the schools of western Odisha districts and Athmallik subdivision. On this topic please see our earlier discussions:

 ● Kosli language waits for govt’s nod for inclusion in the Indian constitution

● Parliament debates on Kosli language

● Recent advances on Kosli language

● The Sambad (Odia daily) on our discussion of Kosli language

●Responses to the article entitled ‘Matrubhasha O Maanak Bhasha’ by Debi Prasanna Patnaik published in the ‘Sambad’ on 22nd July 2011 (Part I)

●Responses to the article entitled ‘Matrubhasha O Maanak Bhasha’ by Debi Prasanna Patnaik   published in the ‘Sambad’ on 22nd July 2011 (Part II)

● Dr Arjun Purohit’s response to Debi babu’s article on Kosli language

● Kosli language should be a subject and the medium of instruction in primary classes : Dr. Mahendra Kumar Mishra