The results of Class X examination conducted by the Himachal Board of School Education, where only one out of 80,000 students from 2,500 government high schools found place in the merit list, is a pointer towards deteriorating standards of education in the government sector.The results have also exposed the claims of the government to have made rapid strides in education and send a note of caution that merely opening schools and developing huge infrastructure alone cannot bring qualitative improvement in education.
Out of 33 toppers, sharing first 10 ranks, only one student from a government school in Hamirpur district has been placed in the top 10 list. It is a cause for concern as students of government schools had been doing well in board examinations in the past.While the government had been opening new schools indiscriminately in the past, parents were shunning government schools and there is a flight of 2 per cent students every year from government to private schools even in rural areas.The enrolment in government schools decreased from 9,59,147 in 2014-15 to 8,90,137 in 2016-17 , a drop of 69,010, while the enrolment in private schools increased by 32,961 from 4,83,951 to 5,16,912 during the corresponding period as per the latest data compiled by the Education Department.“The policy of no detention under the Right to Education was one of the main reason for declining standards as both the teachers and students have become complacent and there is no fear of failure,” said Virender Chauhan, president of the Himachal Government Teachers Union, adding that the board examinations of Classes V and VII should be revived in the interest of the students.“Though CCTV cameras were installed in 100 government schools, even after our request no cameras were installed in centers at private schools and, therefore, the possibility of cheating cannot be ruled out,” he said.Teachers in private schools are only entrusted with teaching, while in government schools the extra non-teaching assignments given to teachers consume most of their time, said another teacher Kishore Sharma.
There is nearly 99 per cent enrolment at elementary level and dropout rate is negligible and the total number of teachers in government schools is above 66,000 and teacher-student ratio is 12.40 at primary level, 13.24 at upper primary level, 18.68 at secondary level and 12.19 at senior secondary level.However, the deployment of teachers has been done in an irrational manner and 1,214 primary and upper primary schools (which are the base of school education) are being run by single teacher while 4,941 schools have less than 20 students.In several schools, teachers outnumbered students and the government undertook rationalisation exercise by closing schools with less students or merging it with some nearby school.After this exercise, the number of primary and upper primary schools has come down from 12,913 to 12,788, but a lot more needs to done as enrolment in government schools is dropping by about 2 per cent annually.