A majority of students in class X and XII have failed to pass the examinations but the results have not come as a surprise to the BJP-led Haryana Government, which has put the blame squarely on previous Congress Government in the state for the dismal performance of students.
“The students’ results should not be seen as our performance. It is the performance of previous State Government in Haryana,” said State Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma while talking to the mediapersons on Thursday.
Sharma’s remarks came in the wake of dismal results of Haryana Board of School Education for class X and XII examinations in which nearly 60 per cent and 49 per cent students respectively failed to pass the examinations.
While the Manohar lal Khattar led Haryana Government has been spelling out its achievements on various fronts in last six months of their rule, the dismal results has raised questions on priorities of the State Government, which has been toiling hard in promoting moral education with inclusion of Gita shlokas and Yoga in school curriculum.
When asked about the same, Ram Bilas quoted the phrase, “Sound mind in a sound body…The Government is working on providing quality education to the students and moral education is significant part of it.”
Notably, the overall pass percentage was just 41.28 for class X and 53.96% in the senior secondary (class XII) examinations declared a day before.
The girl candidates had fared better than their boy counterparts. The pass percentage for girls in the secondary examination was 64.5 percent, while the boys had recorded a pass percentage of 45.88 percent. In the senior secondary examination, the girls recorded a pass percentage of 44.6 percent and the boys managed to get a pass percentage of 38.4 percent.
Asked about the reasons for dismal performance of students and State Government’s plans to improve education system in Haryana, the Education Minister choose to spoke on inclusion of Gita shlokas and Yoga in the school curriculum and how it will improve the education system. All this will raise the quality of educational standards in the government schools at all levels, he added.
Over the allegations that the BJP is attempting to saffronise the education system, Ram Bilas went onto to say that sun suffuses the sky at sunrise and sunset, national Flag has saffron colour, the Saints worshipped in India also wear saffron colour… All this does not denotes saffronization of anything.
“The State Government is also considering adding passages from Quran, Gurbani in school curriculum,” added he, amid the controversy stirred over Haryana Government’s move to add a Hindutva orientation to the education system with introduction of Gita shlokas in school curriculum.
Blaming the previous Bhupinder Singh Hooda led State Government for poor results of class X and XI students, the Minister also rolled out official data of pass percentage of previous years justifying that this year’s results was poor as no grace marks were added.
“The actual result in year 2012 was 40.63 per cent which was raised to 65.38 per cent by adding grace marks. In 2013, the actual result was 40.95 per cent which was increased to 50.79 per cent and 52 per cent results of year 2014 was increased to 60 per cent by way of adding grace marks” he said.
Ram Bilas added that the overall pass percentage of class XII was 53.96 per cent this year with 22 per cent compartment or re-appear and the department would now conduct coaching classes in June so as to ensure clearance of re-appear or compartment examination by all students.
As per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2014) released earlier this year, Haryana was among the top five states in the country having high enrolment rates in the private schools at the elementary stage. Also, the performance of private schools was found to be much better than government schools in Haryana.
About semester system, the Education Minister said that maximum academicians have suggested to eliminate the semester system in schools of the state. A sum of Rs 71 crore on account of security deposit and 13 months pending salary had been released to about 2852 computer teachers, added he while responding on the issue of computer teachers.