Lok Sabha Question No. 1485 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2019-07-01
Subject: Quality Education
Ministry: HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Jayadev Galla

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1485 TO BE ANSWERED ON 1 st   JULY, 2019

## Quality Education

## 1485.   SHRI JAYADEV GALLA:

## Will the Minister of HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- (a) whether  as  per  a  study  of  NITI  Aayog  it  indicates  that  in  spite  of  having  schools  3-4 times more than China, we are not able to provide better/quality education;
- (b) whether shortage of more than 10 lakh teachers and poor distribution of the existing ones is impacting the quality of education and if so, the details thereof;
- (c) the  steps  taken/being  taken  by  the  Government  to  ensure  mastering  competencies  than ensuring syllabus completion; and
- (d) the other measures taken by the Government to provide better education in this regard?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

## (SHRI RAMESH POKHRIYAL 'NISHANK')

- (a) NITI Aayog has informed that no such study has been carried out by them.
- (b) The  Right  of  Children  to  Free  and  Compulsory  Education  (RTE)  Act,  2009 in  its Schedule lays down Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) for both primary and upper primary schools, as 30:1 and 35:1 respectively. As per the framework of erstwhile scheme Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha  Abhiyan  (RMSA),  now  subsumed  under  Samagra  Shiksha,  PTR  at  secondary  level should be 30:1. As per the UDISE 2016-17 database, the PTR at national level for primary schools is 23:1, for upper primary schools is 24:1 and for Secondary level is 26:1.

Education  being  in the concurrent list, the recruitment, service conditions  and deployment of teachers come under the domain of the State Government and Union Territory (UT) authorities.   However, Ministry of Human Resource Development has issued advisories to  all  the  State  and  UT  Government  for  filling-up  the  vacant  post  of  teachers,  their  rational deployment, and re-deployment of surplus teachers. Further, the Central Government through the centrally sponsored scheme of Samagra Shiksha, provides assistance to the State and UT

Governments  for  deployment  of  additional  teachers  to  maintain  appropriate  Pupil  Teacher Ratio (PTR) as per the prescribed norms for various levels of schooling.

- (c)   & (d) The Central Government has taken several initiatives to improve the quality of education and to ensure mastering of competencies:
1. In order to focus on ensuring competencies, the Central rules to the Right of Children to  Free  and  Compulsory  Education  (RTE)  Act,  2009  have  been  amended  to  include reference  on  class-wise,  subject-wise  Learning  Outcomes,  which  have,  accordingly, been finalized and shared with all States and UTs.
2. The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has conducted National Achievement Survey (NAS) based on these learning outcomes for Classes III, V and VIII on 13 th November, 2017 to enable States/UTs to identify gaps in learning outcomes at district level and design strategies to address those gaps. Similarly, NAS for Class X was conducted on 5 th February, 2018.
3. Under  Samagra  Shiksha,  funds  are  given  to  all  States  and  UTs  for  strengthening  of infrastructure and provision of other facilities in schools to ensure that all schools meet the prescribed norms, besides other interventions to improve the quality of education such as training of in-service teachers, headmasters and principals, remedial teaching for  academically  weaker  students,  provision  of  library  grants  to  schools,  ICT  and digital  initiatives,  strengthening  of  teacher  education  institutions,  Rashtriya  Avishkar Abhiyan, Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat, etc.
4. The online D.El.Ed. course was started from 3rd October, 2017 and 9,58,513 teachers have successfully completed the training.
5. Regulations  for a four year B.Ed  integrated  course, to bring about  qualitative improvement  in  teacher  education,  have  been  published  in  official  gazette  on  29 th March, 2019 and applications have been invited w.e.f. 3 rd June, 2019.
6. It  has  been  decided  to  participate  in  the  Programme  for  International  Students Assessment (PISA) to be conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2021, which is a competency based assessment.
7. Approval has been given for conducting a Census based audit called Shagunotsav of all government and government aided schools in all States and UTs.
8. MHRD has designed a 70 indicators based matrix called Performance Grading Index (PGI) to grade the States/UTs.
9. In 2019-20, approval has been given for an Integrated Teacher Training Programme to train 42 lakh teachers, and other functionaries to make classrooms learner-friendly and  improving  children's  competencies  including  critical  thinking,  problem  solving, creativity, as well as social-personal qualities such as cooperation, team work etc.
10. In 2019-20 approval has been given for a competency based School Based Assessment (SBA) at the elementary level.

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