Patna, Jan. 27: The human resource development (HRD) department has decided to monitor the work of various schemes and activities of the state government on a regular basis.

HRD principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, while talking to The Telegraph, said: “Earlier, there was collective monitoring of all the schemes and programmes, but now we have decided to monitor each and every scheme on a monthly basis.”

The decision of monthly review has been taken with an aim to strengthen and improve the implementation of various schemes of the state government. Chief minister Nitish Kumar had recently said that a lot more has to done to improve the quality in primary education in the state. The HRD has taken up the cudgel to improve the state ofprimary education.

The HRD department has also decided that only 50 per cent teachers from government schools will be included in the census work, starting in February this year.

This has been done with so that students’ studies don’t suffer while teachers are called for the census duty.

The HRD principal secretary said: “We have also decided that those schools which have two or less than two teachers would not be asked for manpower support during the census work.”

Last year, studies, primarily in government schools, were affected when teachers had been involved in the census work.

About the monthly monitoring of the various schemes, sources said the move is aimed at meeting the deadlines of different schemes.

According to an HRD source: “For checking the efficiency and quality of elementary education, the Primary and Secondary Directorate will monitor the work in two months’ duration.”

The directorate, as a part of monitoring activities, will asses the present situation and also provide inputs for improving the quality education in schools.

The directorate will assess the progress in the ongoing scheme to send out-of-school children back to school on an interval of three months.

The directorate will also create education awareness in slums and strengthen the mid-day meal programmes at schools.

The Poshak Yojana, one of the most successful schemes of the NDA in its first tenure, will be monitored on a monthly basis. Under the scheme, cash for uniforms were provided to students to promote female education.

Directorate of mass education will monitor the work of schemes run by the state government to increase literary rate in Bihar and take it up to the national average.

Under the schemes, the directorate will identify the actual number of illiterate persons in state and set a timeframe to achieve the target.

The directorate of higher education will monitor the schemes on an interval of three months. The directorate will select the place for setting up degree colleges, construction of buildings and also arrange other infrastructure.

The directorate of higher education has also been assigned the task for speeding up the process for setting up Aligarh Mulsim University branch in Bihar and the directorate will asses the work on an interval of two months.