The Editorial Analysis- Reforms and the Task of Getting Teachers on Board

Reforms in Education Sector- Relevance for UPSC Exam

• GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges
  • Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Reforms in Education Sector by Andhra Pradesh in News

• Recently, the Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh has taken many reforms in the education sector.

India- UAE MoU on Cooperation in the Field of Education

Reforms in Education Sector

• Mission: Educational Reforms are aimed to ensure that all children have access to quality education within an equitable and inclusive classroom environment.
  • These reforms will take into account diverse backgrounds and different academic abilities of each students, thereby making them active participants in the learning process.
• Objective: The objective is to shift the focus from content retention to building critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, making the learning process more experiential, holistic, integrated, enquiry-driven, and enjoyable.
  • To this, the government is redefining the tasks, the training patterns and the professional development mode of teachers.
• School Restructuring Programme: it calls for a merger of classes three to five in primary schools with high schools.
• App Based Attendance System: The new app-based attendance system is a pilot project that was rolled out by the government in August in State-run schools.
  • Teachers presence is needed during their attendance, as the Unified District Information System for Education (U-DISE)-linked system records metrics such as the longitude and latitude of the place where they are present.
  • Attendance is sent to officials by SMS.
  • Parents will also receive SMS updates on their child’s arrival and departure from school.

Reforms in Education Sector- Concerns of Teacher Unions

• Teacher unions are sceptical about the results of these reforms, which are being aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
• School Restructuring Programme: The believe it will further contribute to the school drop-out rate as it will deprive a large population of students who live in remote rural and tribal pockets of education.
• Increased Workload: They also say that the government order 117 on reapportionment of teaching staff in the State will only increase their workload in addition to shrinking existing teacher posts.
• Concerns with Facial Recognition App: The introduction of a face recognition app by the School Education Department, asking teachers to download it in on their personal mobile phones and record their daily attendance, has further angered teachers.
  • Citing virtual security reasons, teacher unions are refusing to follow the instructions and have urged teachers across the State to boycott use of the app.
  • They have demanded that the government provide them devices, as in the past, when they recorded their attendance using an Aadhar-enabled biometric attendance system.

Way forward

• Rectifying the Errors: The Minister has promised to address other issues such as poor or no Internet connectivity in villages and tribal habitations.
• Technology-driven approach: Education Department officials say that such technology-driven effective mechanisms are needed to check teacher absenteeism.
  • We need a fool-proof system in place to ensure transparency and accountability.

Conclusion

• While the State has embarked on radical changes in the curriculum, school-restructuring and the mode of teaching, teacher unions remain nonchalant.
• It is expected that they should now step out of their traditional role of teaching academic content in a classroom and, instead, focus on acquiring new abilities, skills and showing greater commitment.

Online Education in India: Benefits, Issues and Government Steps

Online Education in India: Benefits, Issues and Government Steps

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