Schools in Punjab functioning without principals: Staff

In an apparent neglect of the education sector, the Punjab government has appointed only five Principals in the 119 Senior Secondary government schools functioning here.

In 139 High Schools of the district, post of principal is not even sanctioned, the shortage which is showing impact on the quality of education as in some schools not a single student could pass the eighth board examinations and in many the pass percentage is less than 20 per cent, according to figures obtained through Right to Information.

Moreover, only eight schools at Senior Secondary levels have full working staff as per the sanctioned strength while most of them are facing acute shortage as well.

The cascading effect of such ignorance of education sector by state government is becoming apparent on the results of student as in four such schools a total of 52 students appeared for class eighth board examination but none could pass this year, district education officer has informed in an RTI reply dated November 18, 2009.

In nine other schools pass percentage had not exceeded 20 per cent in class eighth board examination, the reply provided by activist Bimal Khemani reveals.  There are a total of 429 schools in thedistrict if the  middle schools are also considered.

The analysis of data for the eighth class board examination shows that in 120 schools the pass percentage was below 30 per cent which mean not even one-third of the student appearing for examination could pass.

In 125 schools this figure was anything between 31-50 per cent. There were just 35 schools, which is not even 9 per cent of them, where the pass percentage was substantially high which is above 80 per cent.

The RTI application also sought reasons for such dismal performance but no such explanation was given by district education officer in his reply. The reply which should have been given to the applicant within a month could only be secured five months later after the state information commission ordered the concerned officer to do so.

Despite repeated attempts, director general School Education, Krishan Kumar did not respond to the queries.