NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The education department, this academic year, is considering amalgamation of government schools, which have registered substantial drop in the number of students and hence showing poor enrollment.
The scheme to amalgamate such schools was introduced by the government some 2-3 years ago. However, opposition from the parents had forced the department of education to withhold the same.
Director of education G P Bhat informed this daily that the exercise to assess the situation as regards drop in the number of students in government schools, in turn making teachers surplus in number, has already been taken up by the department of education.
“We will know the exact situation in this context by the end of June, and then decide as to whether close down the government schools with poor student strength, or amalgamate them with respective nearby schools,” the director of education added, maintaining that the decision about surplus teachers, if any, would also be taken by the department. “Our future course of action would be based on the report of this assessment exercise,” he noted.
Incidentally, sources in the education department informed that this academic year, there exist a number of schools, whose student strength is less than 15. They also maintained that due to the particular situation, at least 100 teachers in various government schools have become surplus, and therefore have to be transferred elsewhere.
As per the educational statistics released by the department of education for the academic year 2015-16, many primary and secondary government schools around the state had enrollment below 15, as low as 4 and as high as 14.
Ironically, in spite of the efforts of the government to repair and upgrade existing government schools in the state through the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation as well as construct new ones, these schools have failed to attract the parents of the students.