Tripura has 4,790 schools of all categories, but barring those in urban areas, attendance of students in schools in the rural and hilly areas is now down to 30 per cent.
Echoing the anxiety of the school education department over the issue, chief minister Manik Sarkar described this as a major “area of concern”.
He was addressing the central programme of the state government at Rabindra Shata Varshiki Bhawan hereon the occasion of Teacher’s Day.
“We have built up a complete infrastructure for school education in Tripura. There is no dearth of teachers and the midday meal programme has been going on smoothly. Then why is attendance so low?” Sarkar asked.
Without spelling his contention in so many words, he indirectly blamed the teaching community for the students’ poor attendance in schools. “The teachers should impart lessons in such a way that students will be attracted to attend classes. I am convinced that low attendance of students in classes is a commentary on quality of teaching,” Sarkar said.
He asked the school education department to organise Teacher’s Day spread over several days from next year.
“Teachers must introspect and find out the reasons for aversion to school among students; I am sure if teaching is attractive, students will not need telling to be present in class.”
Sarkar also stressed the need for regular interaction between teachers and guardians so that appropriate means can be applied to make the schools centres of attraction.
He, however, did not lose the opportunity to take a dig at the Centre on the issue of education. “We are facing a new kind of challenge in the country now as the Centre is encouraging infiltration of religion and religious ideas in the sphere of education which should be secular. The teachers must rise in protest against this,” Sarkar said.
He asserted that the state government’s priority now is “quality education”.
The minister for school education, Tapan Chakraborty, partially blamed the “no detention” policy up to Class VIII introduced by the erstwhile UPA-II government for low attendance of students in schools, specially between Classes I and VIII.
“We protested this when it was introduced and we hold that we should revert to the past policy; I hope the literacy rate in Tripura will reach 97 per cent on September 8, the World Literacy Day,” Chakraborty said.
Source: Nagaland Post
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