A descendant of the erstwhile great communist leader Mohan Dash's family, he took to politics and public life as a fish takes to water. As a student leader, he won popularity as vice-president of the Nimapara College Students’ Union in 1982 and president in 1983. Subsequently, he stole limelight by becoming general secretary, All India Students’ Federation, and being elected as president, AIYF, Orissa. He was also president of MS Law College Union, Cuttack in 1997. He gathered experience in grassroots-level politics when he became Sarapanch, Bhiligram, from 1992 under Nimapara block and then being a Puri Zilla Parishad Member. He opened his innings to the State Assembly in 2004. Then, he was elected to the Assembly in 2009, 2014 and 2019. Currently, he is the Minister for School & Mass Education, The distinguishing characteristics of Samir Ranjan Dash are that he is a workaholic Minister whose doors are open to public round the clock. Presently, he has many plans on his agenda for rejuvenating the school and mass educational system in consultation with experts. In an interview to The Pioneer, Dash spoke to Sugyan Choudhury on the many educational issues.
What’s your agenda for galvanising the school and mass education in the State?
Our education system is woven on a synergetic loom. Strands of budgetary provision, recruitment of faculties, development of infrastructure and innovative practices are inextricably intertwined. The budget for education has been increased many fold. The faculties have been timely recruited and the teacher-pupil ratio is one of the best in the country. A number of transformative exercises like opening Odisha Adrsha Vidyalaya, Mo School Abhiyan, provision of more scholarship, free textbooks, uniforms, bicycles, opening libraries, timely teachers’ recruitment and training have been taken up to improve the school education sector to increase the public perception of the school education service delivery system. Another move, known as SATH-E (Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital Action Education), with its 15 initiatives like school rationalisation by merger, ensuring access and equity in tribal areas, filling up vacancies, school interventions like remediation training to in-service teachers to improve effectiveness of teaching and learning programme, MIS at all levels for measurement and accountability to assess the strengths and weaknesses haven been taken up to provide modern education to students so that they could prepare themselves to cope with the newly-created social conditions and circumstances with a forward outlook and result-oriented achievements.
What are your plans for scaling up of the knowledge of the teaching community to meet to the minds of the present-generation sudents?
Effective training are being imparted to the teachers so as to acclimatise them with new improved and proven methods of teaching and learning. There are 15 specialised training institutions at the State level and 30 DIETs at the district level to monitor the progress and explore the possibilities for future. The remediation programme “UTKARSH” has been extended to all 30 districts. As a preparatory activity, 17,296 teachers of the 30 districts have been oriented and trained in English, Odia, Mathematics and Science subjects. Resource materials have been distributed to them along with the teachers’ handbook for smooth implementation of the programme. Teachers are being encouraged for making judgments best suited to their teaching contexts and catering to the individual learning requirements of children. They have been trained not to perceive the act of teaching as monotonous and routine but feel that it is full of challenges, dilemmas and decision-making on an everyday basis.
What are the steps you are taking for growth of science and technical education?
The ignition of mind is encouraged through tastes like “Pathani Samanta” and “Science exhibition”. At present, ICT @ Schools Schemes has been implemented in 4,000 secondary schools and 5,129 more schools will be included in coming years. Steps have been taken for implementation of 30 nodal smart classrooms and IT facilitation centres under Modernisation of Quality Education in the leading higher secondary schools of each district with objectives to enhance the learning process through audiovisual approach, create advancement in education system and make better learning and understanding through interactive process.
Could you please tell us about the status of achievement in the vocational sector of school education?
Our State has patronised vocational education with an objective to enhance the employability of youths through demand-driven competency-based modular vocational courses. Accordingly, the State has rolled out the programme in six trades in 314 selected schools. The State has included the subject within the six compulsory subjects at the secondary level. Vocational subjects find place along with the 3rd languages in secondary curriculum. Similarly, for Higher Secondary, the State has included the subject as one of the four elective subjects at the higher secondary level for all three streams. Trade-specific labs have been established in 208 schools. At the higher secondary level, teaching is imparted in 20 trades. There are 231 Government Vocational Junior Colleges (GVJCs) functioning in the premises of 18 Government colleges and 213 Non-Government colleges.
Could there be any uniformity of educational institutions in the State and in the country based on various educational commissions’ reports from time to time?
Various commissions have aggregated the articulated interests of the society as a whole. The aggregated interests are being rationally adjudicated at the level of the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD). As per the MHRD instructions, our State adopts the education system as per the suitability. It is called point of “Pareto- Optimality”. Recently, our State under the stewardship of our beloved Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik actively participated in the making of the new education policy. We will follow the recommendations in letter and spirit with the permissible modifications.
It is alleged by teacher union leaders that various categories of teacher are deliberately created by the State Government to divide and rule over them.
There are only two registered associations, namely Odisha Secondary School Teachers’ Association (OSSTA) and All Utkal Primary Teachers’ Association (AUPTA). The teachers have been grouped as sector-specific, grade-specific to act as pressure groups. All of them are interested to highlight their own problems. Sub-groups have been created by the teachers themselves on the basis of particular problem and specific demands/grievances. The Government is trying its best to redress their grievances. The Government has not role to play in it.
Could you please tell about the budgetary allocation for School & Mass Education? Do you feel any resource crunch responsible for retardation of the system?
When our party Biju Janata Dal came to power in 2000-01, the budgetary allocation of School and Mass Education was Rs 1,428 crore. It has been increased 1052 times; and the budgetary allocation for the year 2019-20 is Rs 16,467 crore. It roughly comes to 12% of the total State Budget.
