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Hot seat
At 75.99 per cent, the state recorded its best ever pass percentage in the recently declared matric results. What do you think made it possible?
After last year’s question leak incident, we wanted to bring about various reforms and plug loose ends. Besides improving the overall administration, we introduced changes such as question paper-cum-answer booklets. We conducted a pre-board exams to prepare students and familiarise them with the new format, which also reduced malpractice rate. Other measures such as making exam centres more accessible to local students, timely conduct of exams, evaluation and publication of results, and constant interaction with the district administrations concerned and police yielded results.
Despite your best efforts to streamline the exam process, 149 meritorious students of various schools were awarded zero in a couple of papers and declared failed due to some goof-up by the Board of Secondary Education. How did that happen?
I apologise to students who were given zero instead of 100. It was a technical error which could have been avoided. Some evaluators had not clearly marked 100 on the OMR sheet and it showed just 00. We could have checked if any student, who has secured 60 per cent marks, has been awarded zero in any subject or not. But we never anticipated such a problem. We will send a regret letter to all the 149 students for the trauma they went through.
There is a view that the state government decided to do away with the list of top-100 students in matric exams because the private Saraswati Sishu Vidya Mandirs have been bagging top honours for quite some time now. What is your take on this?
Nobody is stopping them from publicising their good results. There are different ways of evaluation and we are not clear which method would reflect the actual merit or personality of a child. So, it is not fair to declare toppers and felicitate them. This is not to belittle meritorious students. Merit has its own value but we don’t want discrimination. For me, a Malkangiri student scoring 40 per cent and a Balasore student securing 90 per cent are both toppers.
But why are government schools lagging behind?
Most children in government schools belong to vulnerable communities, many of them first-generation learners. Uneducated parents hesitate to ask questions about their children’s progress. The motivation level of teachers has hit rock bottom. They worry more about their own problems than teaching students. Then, the system is to blame. Good governance of schools has been hampered.
Considering a five per cent rise in matric pass percentage over last year, do you feel the learning standards have also improved?
Studies such as the Annual Status of Education Report-2012 have shown that the learning outcomes have come down. If you consider the infrastructure, pupil-teacher ratio and the various facilities and opportunities to attract children to school, I can say we have improved. But as far as learning or personality development is concerned, I personally feel that has deteriorated.
A huge number of cases and grievances have been registered against the school and mass education department. How are you planning to deal with that?
Our department employs the maximum number of people and so, the number of cases is bound to be high. We have around 50,000 cases in the high court and around 1,000 more related to contempt. Grievances are equally high. They have accumulated over a period of time due to various administrative lacunae and steps have not taken on time. They can be sorted out by reorganising the entire mechanism so that cases can be disposed of at the appropriate levels.
Is there a plan to hand over the responsibility of computer teachers and computer education to an NGO?
A few NGOs had come forward with the plan. But we did not accept it. Teachers should not be worried about it.
lWhy did your department not react, or perhaps reacted late, to the DAV fee hike issue over which the school managements and guardians has been fighting since long?
You have to distinguish between private interest and public interest. DAV is a private agreement between parents and teachers. We cannot spend so much time or resources on resolving private issues. I don’t have a chartered accountant in my department who can work out a fee structure. An independent panel has been set up for the purpose. However, since students ultimately suffered, we had to instruct schools not to stop anyone from attending classes or taking exams.
Don’t you feel overburdened handling two departments?
Certainly, I am overburdened. More than that, I feel that I won’t be able to do justice to the work I have to do. I am not shirking responsibility but if I have to do some work in 15 days, I might take 15 more. I feel I am a suitable secretary for handloom and handicrafts because I have a lot of passion for it.
What are your plans for the handloom, textiles and handicrafts department?
Weavers and artisans are not well paid and their voice is not always heard. They suffer from physical ailments because of sitting in a particular posture all day long, their eyesight becomes weak because they do intricate work. We are trying to give them benefits of health and life insurance besides including the senior citizens under Madhu babu pension scheme. As far as productivity is concerned, we are going for aggressive marketing and requesting government officials to wear handloom products on Fridays. We are organising fashion shows, expos, exhibitions and tying-up with big brands such as Fab India.
Have you ever experienced any political interference in your work?
If someone says it does not exist, it is not true. Political interference will be there because we have our own way of functioning and politicians have their own interests. My responsibility is to present facts before the powers that be. I have to tell the truth, palatable or not.
Affable bureaucrat
Soft spoken and affable, Usha Padhee is one of the top-notch women bureaucrats in the state administration.
A Kannadiga by birth, Padhee holds a degree in civil engineering from Gulbarga University, Karnataka. She joined the Indian Administrative Services in 1996 and was posted in Odisha cadre
After serving as sub-collector of Baliguda, Kandhamal, Padhee was appointed additional project director (watershed) of District Rural Development Agency, Kalahandi, and then additional district magistrate of Balangir. She has also been collector and district magistrate of Nabarangpur, Koraput and Dhenkanal districts
Padhee was associated with livelihood sector and had been state project director of World Bank-assisted Tripti project for Odisha. She has headed the Mahila Commission, State Social Welfare Board, water resources, Employment Mission and Odisha Livelihood Mission. In 2006, the government nominated her for Prime Minister’s award for excellence in administration
She is married to IAS officer Arvind Padhee, who is the chief administrator of the Jagannath temple in Puri and revenue divisional commissioner (central). They have a 14-year-old son
What would you have been had you not been an IAS officer?
I wanted to become a doctor like my mother. However, I could not get a seat in medicine and so, switched over to engineering. Later, I developed an interest for administration
and civil services. Consequently, I cracked the Union Public Service Examinations and joined the IAS in 1996
