The Hindu : Centre thwarting educational reforms: Lovely

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 26, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Centre thwarting educational reforms: Lovely

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 25. The Delhi Education Minister, Arvinder Singh Lovely, today accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central Government of thwarting reforms in the education sector in the Capital. At the same time, he also accused the BJP leaders of trying to play politics with the future of lakhs of students by making baseless allegations when a person of their own party had been found involved in the question paper leak incident.

Replying to the short duration discussion in the Delhi Assembly, Mr. Lovely said the BJP was speaking in two voices and this exposed the differences within the party. He said the Delhi Government had time and again sent to the Central Government certain amendments to be made in the Delhi Education Act but the same had got a negative response and turned down by the Union Government on some ground or the other. It is a clear attempt to thwart reforms in the education sector. Regarding the controversy over the mid-day meal scheme, Mr. Lovely said an inquiry had been ordered into the incidents of children falling sick after eating the meal but indicated that there was some kind of conspiracy at work and the enquiry would bring out the truth. On the issue of question paper leak and postponement of examination of the Delhi Government schools, the Education Minister said the decision to postpone exams was taken in the interest of the students. He said filing an FIR with police and rescheduling the exams was done promptly. In fact, the accused was arrested within 48 hours and it had been decided to revamp the entire system of setting papers and getting them printed. Stating that holding common examination would bring uniformity in the process of evaluation, Mr. Lovely said that it would ensure the wide coverage of syllabus and expose the students to the pattern of CBSE exam norms. He informed that the Government planned to open 22 more Sarvodaya Schools, four Pratibha Schools, and one fully residential school for science stream. In addition to this, computer aided learning was being introduced to enhance learning levels of children and to monitor the progress of each individual student through computer based monitoring system.

Mr. Lovely said that Government had taken major steps towards public participation in school education system by instituting the Vidyarthi Kalyan Samiti (VKS). Under this scheme, each VKS would consist of two representatives of local Resident Welfare Associations, two nominees of Government appointed in consultation with MLAs, two representatives from PTA and one from an NGO. He said a sum of Rs. 1.20 lakh was being made available to each VKS for day to day maintenance of building and other infrastructure issues which till now had to wait for departmental sanction. The Education Minister said it was the Sheila Dikshit Government that had initiated the move to ensure 25 per cent quota in public schools for poor students and the previous BJP Government did no such thing when it had been in power during 1993-98. Mr. Lovely informed the House that Delhi had topped in the CBSE exams for the past two years and this trend would continue.

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