English mandatory from Class II

Earlier, a proposal had been floated to start English as a compulsory subject in all government school from Class I, to curtail the popularity of public schools having English as a compulsory subject from Nursery.

Tota Singh said that after seeking the advice of various education experts, the government had decided to start English as a compulsory subject from Class II instead of Class I.He claimed that chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had agreed to the proposal and it had to be formally cleared at the Cabinet meeting before enacting it as a law.

The minister said the government was committed to bring about improvement in the staggering education system. In the recent examinations, the staff members found guilty of helping students to copy, had already been suspended and police action had been initiated against them. Tota Singh added that a high-level enquiry had been ordered to probe into the alleged irregularities in the recently conducted Elementary Education Teacher Training Examination.

The minister said that during a survey, the Education Department had identified some schools in Ghaggar, Kandi and the border areas where more than 50 per cent of the teaching staff was missing for the past three years on one pretext or the other. Apart from initiating appropriate action against the staff there, the local-level committees comprising of a retired teacher, an ex-servicemen, a panchayat member, a dalit woman, a freedom fighter among others, would be formed to make local arrangements for the teaching staff, he said.

Tota Singh said the government would pay between Rs 2,000 an 2,500 to each of these teachers appointed by the local-level committees. He said that such committees would be encouraged to raise funds at the local level and against the funds raised by them, the government would give them three times bigger matching grants.

The minister made it categorically clear that such arrangement of teachers at the local level, would not affect the recruitment policy of the government. He said that Rs 11 corre had recently been released for the maintenance of 658 school buildings throughout the state.