Orissa to open “Open School” in every district

Following report is from express buzz.com:

BHUBANESWAR: There is still hope for school dropouts who could not complete their studies due to various reasons. The State Government is planning to start open schools in all the districts very soon to enable over-aged dropouts complete their schooling.

The initiative is being taken under the Orissa State Open School (OSOS) which proposes to set up the open schools on the lines of the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). Students getting themselves enrolled at the open school could either opt for a personal contact programme or a distance education programme to get quality education.

For the junior classes, the school would impart education in essential subjects, including arithmetic, reading and writing, alongside pre-vocational training to help them get employment in case they are unable to continue their education. These schools will also offer dozens of new courses so that students can opt for the professional skills best suited to their regional markets.

“The idea has been mooted with an aim of drawing school dropouts back to classrooms by providing them an organised system of education outside of formal schooling,” said School and Mass Education Minister Pratap Jena while speaking to this paper.

He said talks are on with the higher authorities of NIOS to formulate the courses and schooling designs and the Department is expecting to start the open schools during the ongoing academic year. “The open schools are expected to draw a large number of dropouts in the State who want to complete their schooling. The duration of the courses for classes V, VII and X would be of six months each. The detailed modalities for the functioning of these schools are being worked out,” the Minister said. He added that extra care will be taken to ensure that quality of education in such schools is not compromised. The schools would function through a number of study centres which would be established in different districts.

 Several other state governments have launched the open-school system to provide educational facilities to over-aged school dropouts to complete their education.

24,000 sikshya sahayaks to be recruited by 2011:Orissa State Government

Following is a report from expressbuzz.com:

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has decided to launch a massive recruitment drive of teachers to ensure all children exercise their right to education.

Sources said that chief minister Naveen Patnaik has already given a go ahead to the proposal from the school and mass education department. Under the programme, 24,000 sikshya sahayaks will be appointed during the next three months. Advertisements for the largescale recruitment will be given next week.

There are 25493 vacancies of sikshya sahayaks in the state, out of which 24,000 is now proposed to be filled up. Out of these, the requirement for trained graduate teacher (TGT) in Science is 10,534 and TGT in Arts is 2499. Similarly, need for Plus Two CT trained in Science is 5113 and Plus Two Arts CT Trained is 5454.

Finance department sources maintained that the trained teachers will get Rs.4000 per month, while untrained will receive Rs.3500 per month. The state government is reported to be contemplating to engage teachers with lesser qualifications because of non-availability of trained teachers as required.

Accordingly, the Ministry of HRD has been moved to relax the training qualification. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik had taken up the issue of relaxation of training qualification with union HRD minister Kapil Sibal in November, 2010 during one of his Delhi visits.

All the district collectors have been asked to complete the process of recruitment of sikshya sahayaks by March, 2011.

Sri Sri to open a tribal school in Kalahandi

Following is a report from The expressbuzz:

BHAWANIPATNA: He was here to spread the message of happiness. The declaration that Art of Living Foundation is contemplating to set up 20 tribal schools across the country and the first such school will be set up in Kalahandi definitely brought smile to many faces.

 Addressing a mass satsang programme here yesterday evening, he said tribals are protectors of age-old cultural heritage and it is our duty to protect their culture and provide them with minimum basic amenities. He also expressed concern over growing corruption and said this can change only with a change in the mindset and fellow feelings for others.

Earlier, he laid foundation stone for the proposed agriculture college under Sri Sri University at Limser village near Dharamgarh and addressed a farmers’ meet at Dharamgarh. Expressing concern over crop damage due to untimely rain, he asked farmers to adopt organic farming.

The spiritual guru also visited the farm house-cum-temple complex of MP Bhakta Das at Suknabhata village near Bhawanipatna and performed Rudra puja there. He also interacted with tribals, who had come there from Niyamgiri and distributed blankets among them.

Mega part1 course of ‘Art of living’ was conducted at Bhawanipatna and Dharamgarh from December 13 to 16 and before his departure this morning, he conducted Maha Rudra puja at the college ground here.

Jharkhand plans English medium schools in 203 blocks; What about Orissa govt.?

Following is a report by IANS taken from http://www.thaindian.com:

Ranchi, Nov 2 (IANS) The Jharkhand government will open English medium schools in 203 blocks of the state, Chief Minister Arjun Munda announced here Tuesday.

“In the current financial year, we will open English medium schools in 41 blocks while the rest will be opened in the next financial year,” Munda told reporters.

“The government plans to provide quality education to students of the rural parts of the state,” he added.

At present, all government run schools in the state are Hindi medium.

Students helpline in Orissa a huge hit

Following is from The Telegraph:

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 29: The telephone hasn’t stopped ringing at the state school and mass education departments’ grievance cell, where the recently launched students helpline has received a staggering 285 calls in just one week.

This makes it about 40-odd complaints a day from students and their wards across the state.

While the figures are a clear indication of the mounting dissatisfaction among students and their parents, one cannot rule out the increasing popularity of the helpline among the student community.

Students have been making calls to register their grievances from across the state on various issues concerning them.

While majority of calls are regarding teacher absenteeism, students have been complaining about shortage of teachers, non-availability of books and private coaching too.

Among other major complaints are the dismal condition of school buildings, non-availability of uniforms, mid day meals and quality of teaching.

There have also been queries on scholarships and stipends.

However no cases of sexual harassment has been reported yet although the department has put a women staff in place receive such calls so that girl students feel comfortable about making complaints regarding sexual abuse.

Both students and their parents have been making calls, officials handling the helpline said.

“The complaints were being duly registered and fed in computers.

Field staff was contacted on a daily basis.

“Some complaints have also been discussed in a recent review meeting,” said an official, adding that the next review meeting is to be scheduled on November 6.

The department launched the toll free number, 1800 345 6722, and an email help line schoolstudenthelplinesme@gmail.com on October 19.

The aim was to provide direct access to students going through mental, physical or sexual harassment at schools or hostels could directly air their grievances before the government.

At the time of the launch of the helpline, secretary of the school and mass education department, Aparajita Sarangi had said that the number and email address of the helpline should be put up in prominent places in both public and private schools so that students could get familiar with them.

The toll-free number remains open from 8 am to 8 pm on all working days.

School education of Balangir district at the crossroads

Following report is from expressbuzz.com:

BALANGIR: Even as the district receives Rs 50 crore aid from the Central Government for development of education every year, there are 2,500 teacher posts lying vacant here.

The state of school education here has come to such a pass that many upper primary schools have one teacher for seven classes. The worst-hit are Gudvela and Deogaon blocks.

Resenting the government apathy towards education in 34 schools under Gudvela block of Balangir district, villagers of three panchayats along with the students had already staged several agitations in the last two years.

However, precious little has been done so far to address the problems.

Helpless, District Project Coordinator (DPC) Abhimanyu Behera said he was not the authority to recruit teachers. “We cannot do much except make temporary arrangements,” said the DPC.

In these areas, the DPC appointed local youths as education volunteers to impart education to children with a stipend of Rs 500 a month.

But these youths gradually lost interest due to paltry pay.

Behera said in Gudvela block, even regular government teachers do not attend the school because of the river Rahul which separates 32 villages from the mainstream causing communication problem.

Sources said owing to the river, education of 1,600 students is being affected. There are only seven regular teachers for 34 primary schools here.

The situation in Deogaon block is not any better. Here many schools have been functioning without teachers and school buildings.

Schools in Khairguda, Luhakhan, Matupali and Ghatul are also a picture of neglect.

Laxman Meher, vice-president of District Congress Committee (DCC), said that the district is at present, reeling under acute staff shortage and no official is sensitive to this problem. “While the district currently requires 8,730 teachers, it has only 6,228 teachers including sikshya sahayaks, gana sikshaks and regular ones for 2,245 schools in the district,” said Meher.

Orissa to start high-tech coaching progammes for tribal students

Following is a report by IANS published in http://www.indiatalkies.com:

Bhubaneswar, Sep 5 – Orissa, which has the second highest tribal population in the country, will start high-tech coaching progammes from next month exclusively for its tribal students to help them compete in tough competitive examinations.The state government plans to enroll about 1,000-1,500 students of Class 10 and 11 from 19 state-run tribal schools located in the interior areas for the programme. Sanjeev K. Chadha, director of the state Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Welfare Department, said tribal students who are not enrolled in tribal schools would also be given the training later.

‘Two special classrooms would be set up in government-run higher secondary tribal schools as most of the schools are primarily residential. The schools will be equipped with computers, projectors and liquid crystal display (LCD) boards,’ Chadha told IANS.

Students will be provided around 300 hours of coaching by high-quality teachers and instructors, physically or through online and video conferencing. The programme will cost about Rs.3 crore every year, Chadha said, adding that the coaching sessions will include in-depth coverage of all the concepts of physics, chemistry and mathematics.

The project will help students to look beyond industrial training institutes and encourage them to appear in competitive examinations.

The students would be prepared for examinations like the All India Engineering Entrance Examination, (AIEEE), Orissa Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) and the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE), he said.

‘We have already issued a tender to find out a good engineering coaching institute that would provide us the study material. We are likely to finalise this within the next few days,’ he said.

‘Since the Classes 10 and 11 are located mostly in interior areas and primarily residential, satellite technology will be used to train the students,’ said Chadha.

Orissa has the second biggest tribal population in the country. The state has a population of over 36 million, of which more than eight million are tribals, according to the 2001 census. The Scheduled Tribe population is 22.13 percent of the state’s total population.

The percentage of literacy among the Scheduled Tribes is 37.37 against the general literacy level of 63.8 percent . When it comes to functional literacy, the percentage is even lower.

The SC/ST Welfare Department will identify students who have the necessary academic background and basic ideas of Class 10-level physics, chemistry and mathematics, he said.

The department will assess the instructors for each school, a minimum of one instructor each for physics, chemistry and mathematics, he said.

The instructors will be assessed for their ability to facilitate classroom coaching and clear the doubts of students on the subjects, he said.

 (Jatindra Dash can be contacted at jatindra.d@ians.in)  

Help line for school students soon: A report from the Samaj

Pathetic state of primary education in Boudh district of Orissa

Following is a report from Oriya daily the Samaj:

Shortage of text books in Orissa

Following report is from the Telegraph:

Bhubaneswar July 27: The non-availability of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks under CBSE curriculum in major bookstores of the twin cities has posed a major problem for students and parents.

It’s almost a month since schools reopened after summer vacations and students still continue to hunt for their textbooks.

“We have been functioning without many text books for over a month now. Some of us have manage to get the books from our seniors and some others get it from those selling old books,” said Binay Routray, a student of ODM Public School.

Himanshu Pati, the owner of Sagar Book Stores, said: “We were informed in March that this year we would not be facing any problems but we are still waiting for the arrival of the books.”

“For the last one month, I have been hitting stores for a geography book for my son who studies in Class VI. I was assured that it would be available soon,” said Pratap Sahoo, a parent.

NCERT books are preferred for their simplified text and cheap price.

“There is a shortage of many books but our students manage either by taking notes from other books available in our library or from photocopies,” said Bijay Kumar Nayak, headmaster of Venketeswar School.

“The concerned authorities who are to ensure the availability of textbooks in the market have requested school teachers not to force the children to get them at their earliest,” added Sahoo.

Fortunately, online textbooks for different classes are easily available and many students prefer downloading them.

“The problem lies in the demand-supply gap and also in the delay in arrival of the books to the school. Many of our students download the books in case they are not available,” said A Mishra, headmaster of DM School.