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MP chalks out Rs 300-cr school education package

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Shashikant Trivedi New Delhi/ Bhopal

The Madhya Pradesh government on Wednesday unveiled a Rs 1,300-crore plan to overhaul primary education in the state, but conceded the need to muster more funds so as to better the prevailing student-teacher ratio in the schools it runs.

The efforts, which are basically meant to promote the right to education, aims for a “perfect” student-teachers ratio in government-run schools. For this, the state decided to chip in Rs 250 crore and employ nearly one lakh tutors to improve the existing 45:1 to 30:1 ratio in primary schools and 35:1 in middle schools.

A top official spoke about plans to launch a mass drive to recruit teachers, assistant teachers, headmasters and physical training instructors. They will be recruited on contractual basis, and confirmed after three years of work.

 

“We need funds to create another 35,000 posts for teachers,” said Ashok Barnwal, Commissioner (Public Instructions). “We will observe trends for another two years since students hop from government school to private school and vice-versa,” he told Business Standard.

Banwal said the state would receive a central grant of Rs 492 crore to meet the shortage of teaching staff in various government-run schools. The union government will float another Rs 223 crore for setting up modern computer labs on private partnership basis for ensuring computer education in government-run schools. Besides, Rs 336 crore will come for creating girls’ hostels in 201 backward blocks of the state.

“We will float tenders to invite private players to set up computer labs in various schools,” he said. “Private players will also have to contribute in the form of infrastructure in each school. We will also permit private participation in some professional courses on the basis of fees in off-school hours.” The state has nearly four lakh teachers in various schools. Of them, 1,11,000 are in primary schools. The student-teacher ratio the primary schools is more than 50:1 at several primary schools.

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First Published: Aug 25 2011 | 12:25 AM IST

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