Want to bring government schools at par with private ones: Manish Sisodia

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Friday said that the Delhi government is committed to bringing state-run schools at par with private schools in the city so that parents put these on their priority list.

Unveiling the vision and plan for school education for the upcoming academic session, he said, “A lot of work has been done on infrastructure and quality at government schools. Still they are not on the priority list of parents. I wish that to be the case and we all are working towards it.”

At an interaction with school principals and education department officials, Mr Sisodia, who is also the Delhi education minister, said there are three questions that need to be answered if the education system is to be improved.

“The clearer the answers are in the mind of teachers, principals and education administrators about the need for education, how to impart it and what to provide as part of it, the more it will improve in Delhi,” he said.

Terming schoolteachers the “pilots” of the education system, he said everybody else, including principals and education officials, is there to assist them in ensuring quality education.

Talking about the Delhi government’s decision to reduce the school syllabus by 25 per cent, Mr Sisodia said teachers are the “best experts” for obtaining feedback about education.

“We were criticised for reducing the syllabus by 25 per cent. Some suggested that we do it with help from experts, but we did it with the help of 50,000 teachers. Based on their feedback, we accomplished the task as no one is a better expert in this regard than them,” he said.

Sharing details of his government’s efforts to free teachers and principals from non-academic work, he said that estate managers have been appointed for schools who will look after various infrastructure-related matters.

A mobile App is also being developed through which estate managers will give a daily report to education officials. All the infrastructure requirements of schools will thus be met within hours, Mr Sisodia said.

A presentation on the action plan for Delhi government schools in 2016-17 was made during the meet. The adviser to the deputy chief minister, Atishi Marlena, said that educational innovations which were tried out at 54 government schools will now be replicated at 1,000 more schools.

The goals for the 2016-17 academic session involve “foundation skills for students (Class 1-9)” and “subject knowledge for teachers (Class 9-12)”. These two objectives will be met by aligning the programmes for different stakeholders including principals, parents and education administrators.