Patna, Aug. 19: The state human resource development (HRD) department is mulling to take disciplinary steps against 22 block education officers (BEOs) as these officials were not regular in attending the ongoing training programme of BEOs at Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna (CIMP).

The training programme initiated by the HRD department to train BEOs in the Right to Education (RTE) Act started on August 1. The officials had to undergo training programme at CIMP for five days from 9am to 7pm.

The HRD directive to initiate disciplinary steps against these officials assumes importance as earlier this month a district education officer (DEO) from Purnea was punished as he reached late for the training programme of DEOs at Rajgir.

The DEO was transferred and demoted from his existing post. HRD sources said these BEOs would have to face similar consequences as they will be either demoted or transferred from their existing posts.

According to sources, the RTE would be implemented from 2013 and the state HRD would reform the education sector, with a special focus on primary and secondary educations. The DEOs and BEOs would now be assigned new jobs. Moreover, the budgetary allocations of these DEO and BEOs have grown manifold. Earlier, the budgetary allocations to DEOs were confined to around Rs 20 lakh but now the figure has reached crores.

Moreover, for the successful implementation of RTE in state the government has earmarked a budget of Rs 11,000 crore for primary and secondary educations.

To deal with new tasks, the state government has started training programmes for BEOs and DEOs by CIMP. All 587 BEOs from the state will be provided training at CIMP and these BEOs have been grouped into 18 batches.

Till now, four batches of BEOs have been provided training. Two batches of 35 BEOs are being provided training at a time. The officials who were absent at the training programme belong to these four batches.

Somnath Dutta, the assistant professor of CIMP who has been assigned the job of providing training to BEOs and DEOs told The Telegraph: “As part of the training programme, the course has been divided into five days during which management training is being imparted to these officials.”

On the first day, the BEOs are taught about RTE and new responsibility they would have to undertake.

During the second day, the emphasis is on ways to meet new challenges. On day three, data management like collection of data, storing data and drawing conclusions from data is taught.

Motivation and leadership are taught on the fourth day and the last day is kept for classes on conducting meetings. Dutta said the BEOs are also provided basic computing skills and are asked to write about their respective assignments.

A similar type of training programme was held for 38 DEOs at Rajgir in the first week of August. At the weeklong camp, the DEOs were imparted training on leadership, team spirit, financial management and motivation. The 38 DEOs were divided in groups and were assisted by resource persons.