With an am to impart quality education to students the Yogi government has announced a slew of measures including setting up laws to regulate fee structure in private schools, strict action against education mafias and cheating or mass copying, to spruce up the education sector in the state.
The instructions were issued last night after a presentation by the education department before the Chief Minister. The proposals suggest regularisation of academic session of all the universities and common syllabus for all schools and colleges besides bio-metric attendance of teachers and students.
Welcoming the initiative, the state unit of BJP claimed that such measures will certainly improve the education quality in the state.
“The CM is always in action and his directives for the education sector would bring a revolution in the education fields,” said UP BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak here today.
He said that during the previous SP and BSP regime, the education sector had turned into shambles with mass copying and other irregularities highlighting the corruption in the system.
“ Half of the government schools did not get books and uniforms during the last academic session, which shows the real picture of corruption in the previous SP government,” he further added.
According to the directives CM asked officials to bring a legislation to provide relief to parents from exorbitant fees which are increased every year. The the secondary education department will prepare a draft ordinance titled `UP Schools (Regularisation of Fee Collection), 2016’. The ordinance will be placed before the cabinet after seeking opinions from all stakeholders.
The ordinance would prevent private from charging exorbitant fees. The government plans to put in place stringent provisions like de-recognition and cancelling the registration of schools for charging more fees than prescribed by the fee regulating committee. Five other states Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat and Maharashtra have already brought in similar legislation to regulate fees in private schools.
Yogi also directed officials to take strict action and even put the concerned in jail who were found involved in mass copying in the Board examination. Action including lodging of FIRs should be taken against the government teachers found engaged in coaching institutions or taking private tuition.
All the courses should be completed in 200 days and the attendance of the teachers as well as the students should be monitored through bio-metric system to prevent any lapses. Besides there should be a common syllabus and the academic session should be regularised. “All the books and uniforms given to the primary students of the government schools should be made available by July next,” Yogi said. All the examinations should be held in time and vacancies should be filled up to end the shortage of teachers.
He said that old trade courses in the ITIs should be changed to new one while the building and equipment of the defunct engineering or other institutions should be made available to the new institutions.