Education, SC/ST development, IT given priority: Governor

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, FEB. 26. The Government proposes to amend the Education Act to provide for the constitution of a development and monitoring committee for its schools, the Governor, Ms. V.S.Rama Devi, told the joint session of the legislature here on Monday.

Ms. Rama Devi referred to the launching of the ``Samudayadatta Shale'' programme of the Government to bring schools closer to the community and create a sense of ownership and responsibility among the people towards them, and said the proposed development and monitoring committee was to ensure community ownership of schools and to enforce their accountability to the community.

In her address, the Governor said gram panchayat education committees and taluk panchayat education committees would be constituted to oversee the activities aimed at acceleration of universalisation of elementary education.

Speaking of the high priority accorded by the Government to education in general and primary education in particular, and also to enhance the quality of education at all levels, the Governor referred to the school adoption programme to encourage community support in education and to improve both physical infrastructure and quality inputs in government schools. The scheme had evoked good response from corporate houses, public and voluntary organisations. Already 430 schools had been adopted under the scheme.

Explaining the action taken to improve the quality of education in government schools through the use of information technology, the Governor said computer-based education was being introduced in 1,000 selected high schools. ``Chaitanya'', a massive intensive in-service training for primary school teachers had been launched and 50,000 teachers would be trained under the programme by March and another 50,000 by the end of June.

SC/ST development: On the implementation of schemes for the overall development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Ms. Rama Devi said the thrust was on education, irrigation and housing apart from skill development and self-employment programmes. The Ganga Kalyana scheme was being implemented on a large scale and more than 1,100 borewells had been drilled this year.

In order to prevent dropouts from schools, a scheme for award of incentive scholarship to SC and ST middle school girl students would be introduced. More hostels would be constructed to provide adequate accommodation and other facilities to SC/ST children.

Intensive training programmes for unemployed SCs/STs in job- oriented courses would be continued by upgrading the existing skills. Special schemes for economic development of primitive tribal groups and establishment of education complexes for ST girls in low literacy pockets would also be taken up.

As far as the backward classes and minorities were concerned, the Governor said their interests would continue to be safeguarded. Twenty post-matric and three pre-matric hostels had been constructed. Boarding charges had been increased for pre-matric children from Rs. 350 to Rs. 400 per month and for post-matric children from Rs. 400 to Rs. 450 per month. The work on 20 hostel buildings had been taken up at a cost of Rs. 8 crores.

On the Stree Shakti Scheme to empower women, of the proposed one lakh self-help groups, 38,000 had already been set up. Each group would receive Rs. 5,000 as revolving fund and Rs. 5,000 worth of kit. Women had been made sole owners of the houses built under the Ashraya scheme. Tuition fees for girl students up to PUC had been waived.

IT policy: Under the millennium IT policy to carry IT to the common man, seven pilot centres had been set up under Yuva.com. The IT seats in engineering colleges had been increased from 10,000 to 14,000. A single window agency for giving expeditious approval for laying of optic fibre cables had been set up.

To encourage IT and management education, new courses such as BCA, MCA and MBA had been introduced in 150 colleges. Comprehensive amendments proposed to the universities Act to streamline and improve the functioning of universities, which was now before the joint select committee, was expected to be passed this year.

Rural roads: The Governor said the newly-established Rural Development Engineering Department had taken up improvements to rural roads throughout the State under a special action plan during 1999-2000. Over 2,500 road works were being executed under this plan at a cost of Rs. 138 crores and 3,340 km. of villages had been asphalted.

Biodiversity areas: Under the Western Ghats projects, biodiversity-rich areas had been surveyed and conservation measures initiated by establishing biodiversity-monitoring plots.

Afforestation: Last year, afforestation was taken up in 3.66 lakh hectares of degraded and waste lands. Under the farm forestry programme, during this year, 61 million seedlings had been supplied, and for the coming year, it was proposed to supply 60 million seedlings.

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