Dismal state of technical education and state funded education in Orissa
February 8th, 2007
Purna Mishra has created a 19 page document on the dismal status of technical education in Orissa. Commenting on that Dr. Sri Gopal Mohanty discusses below the dismal state of state funded education in Orissa. This is what he has to say:
In another message, Purna Mishra concluded that the State Government’s neglect on technical education is serious, in addition to the step-sisterly treatment by the Centre in this regard. A few days back I read that Orissa’s rank is 28 among all States in so far as promotion of primary education. The only consolation may be that the States behind Orissa are: Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. Promotion of primary education is very fundamental in KBK area. It includes to stop the low inpute rate and high drop-out rate at the upper level. The State Government has decided to freeze all appointments including those in education. Its outcome has become disastrous in education. For example in the Department of Mathematics, there are only two faculty members at Sambalpur University and five at Utkal University. They are supposed to teach as well as do research. In about 7000 Government high schools, only about half of them have Math teachers. There are 264 high schools run by the Department of SC/ST Development. Only 190 have Math teachers, most of them being not properly trained. In short there is an acute shortage of Math teachers in the State. The anomaly is no one wants to go for Math as a career selection whereas Math is basic in all technical education.
There was a period when private colleges mushroomed in the State employing third class unemployed graduates who are low salaried or employed paying from their own pocket. Later due to political pressure almost all of them became Govt colleges inheriting the poor quality teachers (often relatives of some influential persons) and
the worse is they soon received UGC recommended scale. Imagine the legacy we have inherited and its impact on the future of the State. In response to the teachers’ absenteeism and prevalent tuition practices, the Government is soon introducing biannual evaluation of teachers by the students on the basis of JNU’s experience. I hope it does help, but I have my doubts, observing the highly politicized campus atmosphere and lack of interest in education among most students.Most of the retired faculties are as valuable as gold due to the overnight expansion of technical institutions and engineering colleges. The outcome is the large gap in the supply of quality teachers. Even in proposed higher learning institutions, the question of acquiring first-rate academics could be a nightmare and there is no
process instituted so as to overcome this problem. Are we again going to be satisfied in inheriting so-so members of the academia and be influenced by political back peddling? The Government including bureaucrats and the public do not feel alarmed. — Sri Gopal
Entry Filed under: Central University of Orissa, Koraput,General Colleges,K-12,Technical and Vocational Education