Chhattisgarh: Laying Foundation Futuristic Education System

From infrastructure to Information Communication Technology (ICT), the Chhattisgarh Government is trying to revamp the higher education landscape of the State in every aspect, observes Elets News Network (ENN).

Since being recognised as a State in 2000, Chhattisgarh seems to be on a growth trajectory in every sector including the education.

Even though the education scenario in Chhattisgarh is not so remarkable due to lack of proper educational infrastructure, the Government as well as the private players appear to have joined hands to develop good educational opportunities in the State.

The State Government has launched several programmes for enhancing the academic scenario of Chhattisgarh. Persistent efforts of the State Government have led to Chhattisgarh witnessing an overall growth in the literacy rate. According to the 2011 census report, Chhattisgarh had a literacy rate of 70.28 per cent. The male literacy rate in the State is 80.28 per cent and that of female is 60.24 per cent. Special importance is given to the education of women and students belonging to the underprivileged section of the society to improve their literacy rate.

Like other states of India, the education scenario of Chhattisgarh is also divided into two segments: School Education and Higher Education. Preschool education is part of School Education in the State.

School Education

Most of the children in the State usually attend three years of Montessori Education before joining 1st standard in a school. Like other States and Union Territories (UT) of India, the schools in Chhattisgarh follow the same 10+2 pattern of education pedagogy. One can come across both private and state-run schools in Chhattisgarh.

The Government-run schools are mostly affiliated to the Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education. Students can also join schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) or International Baccalaureate (IB) schools.

The state-run schools have adopted Hindi as the medium of instruction while English is preferred by most of the private schools. New Life English School Janakpur, Jain International School, Adarsh Vidya Mandir, Gyanganga Educational

The Government is also trying to enhance the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in education. It is made compulsory to provide leased lines to the leading colleges at district level.

Academy, Delhi Public School, Kaanger Valley Academy, Bhartiya Sanskriti Higher Secondary School and Salem English School are some of the popular schools in Chhattisgarh.

To improve the quality of education in Chhattisgarh, the 15th Joint Review Mission Report of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan also praised the State for setting up primary schools within a radius of every one km and middle schools within every three km.

Challenges

Despite the Government’s continuous efforts, Chhattisgarh ranked among the 10 lowest positioned states for primary (I-V classes) and middle schools (VI-VIII) with 28th position on a list of 35 on the Education Development Index (EDI).

While there is a host of factors discouraging children to attend schools, Naxalism is the root cause for putting off young ones from going to schools.

The State is placed higher than bigger states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on EDI but it is found that Chhattisgarh has fallen behind in most of the 24 performance indicators for education sector that were broadly grouped under four segments — access, teachers, outcome and infrastructure.

Higher and Technical Education in Chhattisgarh

Like school education, the Government and various private players have invested to improve the Higher Education in Chhattisgarh.

There are 206 government colleges and seven universities including private universities. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in the State is around 13 per cent, far behind the national average of GER which is around 22 but certain measures have been taken by the Chhattisgarh Government to equate the GER of the State with that of the national average.

The most important of those measures is the implementation of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA). RUSA is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS), launched in 2013, with an aim to provide strategic funding to eligible higher educational institutions of different states. The scheme focuses on three major aspects: Access to education, equity among children and providing quality education.

For easy access of higher education to youth of the State, The government is coming up with four new universities at Jagdalpur, Bilaspur, Durg and Ambikapur. Under RUSA, grant of Rs 20 crore has been sanctioned for the construction of each new university.

Apart from this, grant of Rs 2 crore for constructing eight classrooms and two toilets has been sanctioned for each of the 54 colleges in the State. It would help the colleges to increase overall intake of students by around 50,000 annually. It will directly lead to the increase in the GER and to provide easy access of education to the students. The Government is also trying to enhance the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in education. It is made compulsory to provide leased lines to the leading colleges at district level. Last year, Wi-Fi Networks have been provided to around 50 colleges. Few colleges have their own network that has been provided under the scheme of UGC. The Government is also focusing on providing smart classrooms and virtual classrooms to the colleges as well.

Chhattisgarh has seen an overall growth in the literacy rate possible due to the persistent efforts of the State Government. According to the 2011 census report, Chhattisgarh had a literacy rate of 70.28 per cent.

According to Bhuvanesh Yadav, Joint Secretary, Department of Higher Education and Additional Charge of Mission Director, RUSA, “We are actually stressing on modifying the curriculum as it is outdated. We have formed a community of vice chancellors to improve the curriculum in accordance with the new scenario and this is in the process. We also want to improve employability amongst the students by introducing certain vocational courses. Chhattisgarh is one of the first States which have started vocational courses.”

Modern Approach to Impart Education

To improve the education standards of the State and to provide good quality education to youth, the Government is promoting and installing virtual classrooms, smart classrooms and smart libraries in educational institutes across the State. It contains pre-recorded lectures of important topics from various eminent professors to help students learn effectively.

To provide them with extra input, it is being tried to focus that every college has a Wi-Fi so that they can search more things about their subjects. We are also planning to distribute them Tablets pre-loaded with the content of certain important topics of the subjects. Other than that the government is also planning to distribute tablets pre-loaded with the content of certain important topics of the subjects.

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