Odisha
Aiding & abetting teachers arrested
Three teachers, including a headmaster, were arrested for allegedly messaging answers through a mobile phone to a student examinee during the recently concluded class X state board examinations in Ganjam district. The teachers have been charged under several sections of Odisha’s Conduct of Examinations Act, 1988, police informed mediapersons in Berhampur on March 6.
During a routine check by invigilators, a mobile phone was recovered from the pocket of a class X student, said Ramakanta Mahallick, inspector-in-charge of Ganjam police station. The invigilators also retrieved answers of the maths exam paper from the phone, following which the police registered a first information report.
Haryana
Women education initiatives rain
The (BJP) state government is set to promote 41 greenfield senior secondary schools for girls, education minister Ram Bilas Sharma announced in the legislative assembly in Chandigarh on March 21. He was replying to a question raised by independent MLA Jasbir Deswal on government initiatives to improve women’s education in the state.
According to the minister, 34 of the proposed schools will be sited in the backward Mewat district. In addition, a military school for girls will be constructed in Khudana village of Mahendragarh district; two schools in the Morni Hills and one each in Zainabad and Dhokia in Rewari district, Bhiwani and Sonepat. Moreover, 32 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas and 36 girls’ hostels are being built in educationally backward blocks of the state.
Sharma added that class IX and X girl students of 1,536 government schools are being trained in self-defence and martial arts. “A proposal to open six government colleges for women is also under consideration,” he said.
Madhya Pradesh
Student suicides investigation committee
State legislative assembly speaker Sitasharan Sharma has constituted an expert committee to investigate rising student suicides in MP. On March 4, opposition Congress MLAs raised the issue of rising student suicides in the assembly, prompting chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to urge the speaker to set up a committee to look into the issue.
Intervening, Chouhan said: “It’s important for children to receive education that is stress-free. To achieve this, we must change the education system to enable children to realise their potential. Schools, teachers and parents are all to blame for exerting excessive pressure on students to score well in exams.”
Chouhan also announced new initiatives to curb the student suicide epidemic. “From class IX onwards, counseling sessions for students, parents and teachers will be conducted, and physical education will be made compulsory together with yoga and meditation,” he added.
Assam
CID enquiry into school fire
The state government has ordered a CID inquiry into a fire at the Sankardev Seminary School, Jorhat, which destroyed over 600 answer-scripts of class X students who wrote the exams conducted recently by the Secondary Education Board of Assam (SEBA).
According to an official communique issued by SEBA in Guwahati on March 4, students whose answer-scripts were damaged in the fire will be given the option to re-write the exam on a notified date. For those unwilling to re-write the exam, average marks obtained in the five other subjects will be construed as the final score in the subject.
The CID inquiry was prompted by statewide student protests. Recently, students gheraoed the SEBA office in Guwahati and burnt effigies in protest. Jorhat’s district deputy commissioner Solanki Vishal Vasant described the fire as an act of sabotage, alleging that it was sparked by miscreants through a sky window. He ruled out the possibility of an electrical short circuit causing the fire.
Jharkhand
IT-enabled education for all
IT-enabled Smart classes will be introduced in all state government schools in a phased manner, Jharkhand education minister Neera Yadav announced in the legislative assembly in Ranchi on March 9. Replying to a question posed by BJP MLA Biranchi Narayan on the government’s plan to raise educational standards in its schools to bring them on a par with private schools, Yadav said the BJP state government has big plans to introduce digital-enabled education in all government schools statewide.
According to the minister, Smart classrooms have already been introduced in 203 Kasturba Gandhi Residential Girls Schools in Jharkhand, and plans are being drawn up to extend this facility to other schools in a phased manner. She also appealed to all MLAs to adopt a government school each, adding that teaching-learning standards in public schools are rapidly improving under the leadership of chief minister Raghubar Das.