Pradyut Bordoloi hands over a letter to a staff during the programme in Guwahati on Wednesday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, Sept 24: The Assam government has joined hands with the Centre and the World Bank to improve the quality of secondary education in the state.

“We have made an agreement with them. They will help us improve quality of secondary education and teacher management system,” said R.C. Jain, mission director of Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhijan, Assam, at a programme here.

The programme was organised to distribute post-allotment letters to teaching and non-teaching staff of the newly provincialised high and higher secondary schools.

“They will share with us methods adopted by other states and steps required for Assam for quality improvement. We have informed them about factor affecting the secondary education sector and how tea garden, sar areas and districts of indigenous communities were lagging behind,” Jain said.

Education minister Pradyut Bordoloi was present at the ceremony.

Today, the state education department distributed post-allotment letters against 4,865 posts of 440 high schools and 21 higher secondary schools.

In the first phase, the government had provincialised 1,034 high schools, 12 junior colleges and 47 higher secondary schools.

The government started the provincialisation process last year after nearly 18 years following enactment of the Assam Venture Educational Institutions (Provincialisation of Services) Act, 2011.

Bordoloi requested the teachers to do their duty diligently. He told them that the government spends the lion’s share of its revenue for the education department, mostly in salary of the teachers. “We will also monitor your performances. The government will be firm in improving the quality of education.”

The minister said the state government would also streamline the administrative work associated with the education department to help the teachers.

Around 1,000 teachers, who received their post-allotment letters in the first phase, are yet to receive their salaries because of some snags in the process, an education official said.

Jain said the state government was working to open 100 digital classrooms in 100 schools in the state. He said those classrooms would become operational from January. “Digital classrooms are found in many private schools. We are going to make them in 100 schools. With this Assam will be the first state in the country to use digital classrooms in government schools,” said Jain.