Patna, April 7: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today issued directives that police and security personnel residing in school buildings should be immediately shifted to other places. He issued this directive while chairing the general body meeting of Bihar Education Project (BEP).

Briefing reporters after the meeting, human resource development (HRD) minister P.K. Shahi said: “The plea that buildings to house these police personnel are being constructed would not be entertained and the shifting would be ensured as fast as possible.”

Though Shahi did not have the details as to how many school buildings were being used to house police and security personnel, he said the process had already started.

Nitish also directed the BEP officials to simplify rules so that those willing to donate land in rural areas for setting up schools could do so without any hassle. Keeping the unavailability of land for such purposes in mind, Nitish also directed the BEP officials to formulate a policy for purchase of land for such purpose.

In case of urban areas, the district magistrate concerned would be asked to carry out a survey for identifying government land which could be used for setting up schools.

The decision assumes significance as to make the state comply with the Right to Education (RTE) Act, it needs to have 1.5 lakh additional classrooms in addition to the existing infrastructure.

Another major decision taken at Thursday’s meeting related to improving the quality of education. Realising the need of trained teachers for this purpose, it was decided that the existing teachers’ training schools would be strengthened and private parties would be encouraged to set up such schools. Bihar, at present, needs 3 lakh additional teachers to fulfil the RTE norms.

The BEP officials were also directed to work on a roadmap for leading Bihar to become one of the top ranking states of the country in the next five years and pay special attention to the quality of education being imparted in the government schools.

“Though we have achieved several things in the past five years, our efforts are to improve our records in the next five years,” Shahi said.

The percentage of school dropouts in Bihar stands at 11.2, which is 2 per cent more than the national percentage of 9.2. Bihar has achieved marked improvement on this front in the past five years as the percentage of dropouts from government schools stood at 22 per cent in 2005. The state has also performed remarkably well in reducing the percentage of out of school children and their current percentage is 3.5 which is on a par with the national average.