Chief Minister Raghubar Das has directed the officers of the State to put a halt on the mergers of government schools for the time being. The direction was given on Monday, during a high level meeting of secretaries of all the departments and deputy commissioners of all the 24 districts.
An officer said on the terms of anonymity that the direction may have been given based on the negative feedback the government is getting regarding the school mergers.
The first two phases of school mergers has been completed with around 6000 schools being merged across the State and the third and fourth phase of merger was to be started shortly.
Confirming CM’s direction, Sirector of Jharkhand Education Project Council, Uma Shankar Singh said, “The CM has asked to put a stay on phase three and four of school mergers for the time being, the reason however, is unknown to us. Meanwhile, we are getting an impact assessment of first and second phase of the merger by a third party, IIM Ranchi.”
However, Secretary of School Education and Literacy department AP Singh claimed the topic was not a point in the agenda of the meeting and it might have come up while some other discussion.
He said that the direction might have been issued as there are other government schemes which have to be implemented on a priority basis. Singh said, “I was not present in the meeting but I have not received any such direction about stopping the school mergers. I am assuming that the CM might have given the direction so that the DCs can concentrate on other more important issues for the time being.”
Singh said that the school mergers would have anyways put on a halt for the time being with the budget session starting soon. “The budget session will be followed by matriculation and intermediate examination of Jharkhand Academic Council. After the examinations, the model code of conduct would be implemented for the Lok Sabha elections. In such a situation the mergers could anyways not happen anytime soon,” he said.
The school merger has been undertaken in Jharkhand with the support of Union Government ant National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Ayog.
The plan is to merge government schools having very low enrollment with nearby schools having more enrollment, in order to use the services of teachers fairly.