Patna, May 13: In its effort to improve the education scenario in the state, the government has tied up with Unicef.
A project, christened Leaning Enhancement Programme (LEP), has been devised by the Unicef and is jointly funded by the state and the central governments.
The new scheme will help the authorities keep tabs on dropout rate in government schools. Under the scheme, the school authorities would inform parents about their wards’ progress from thime to time.
With the implementation of the new scheme, parents would be able to register their complaints with block education officers and district superintendents of education if they have any complaints against a school.
The scheme would address the issue of quality teaching in a school. Teachers’ attendance and their capabilities would also be under the scanner through this scheme. A large number of teachers in primary schools had failed to clear two teachers’ eligibility test, the last of which was held in 2010.
The project is being implemented at 135 schools across five districts of the state —Gaya, Purnea, Banka, Vaishali, and Samastipur — since December as a pilot project. Now, the state government is planning to take the project to other districts in a phase-wise manner. Under the programme, teachers will maintain a subject-wise growth profile of every student.
Bihar Education Project Council special project director Rajesh Bhushan said: “The main focus of LEP will not only be on the improvement in the quality of education but efforts would also be put in to ensure the involvement of the community in monitoring the quality of education. The main thrust behind LEP is to enable teachers to focus on every student and also involve parents to ensure quality. The state government is in the process to cover all the students from Class I to Class IV under the scheme.”
“In the past five years we have constructed a large number of school buildings, classrooms and toilets and have also put in sincere efforts to enrol students in schools but the next step is to improve the quality of education,” he said.
Bhushan also said the state government’s much acclaimed computer-aided programme project, christened as e-Samrath, which has been honoured with the Manthan award for the e-education category, is going in the right direction. The Bihar Education Project Council in 2009 decided to partner with Bihar State Education Development Council and introduce computer-aided learning in the middle schools across the state. For this project, the council and IL&FS Education and Technology Services formed a consortium to work in partnership with Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.
