Fall in values among teachers decried

Fall in values among teachers decried
The Hindu

DHARWAD: Minister for Primary and Secondary Education R. Ramalinga Reddy on Monday expressed concern over the falling values among members of the teaching fraternity.

Speaking at a function organised here to present the State-level awards to primary and secondary school teachers on the occasion of Teachers' Day, Mr. Reddy said that after education has been made a fundamental right, a great responsibility has been placed on teachers not only to ensure quality education but also to improve the attendance of the students in schools.

Thirty-two teachers from the primary and secondary schools from all over the State were presented with the State awards including the awards in memory of Rajiv Gandhi and Vignana Parishat award at the function, which was held for the first time outside Bangalore.

He said that the State Government has created a special educational zone for the northwest Karnataka region as a part of decentralisation, and this has given an impetus for attending to the problems with alacrity.

The Commissionerate for the zone created at Dharwad has been striving hard for the improvement of the education in the eight districts of the region.

The State Government had permitted opening of 32 government and 56 private high schools in the region and in current year had sanctioned filling up of 1,040 posts of teachers for 599 government schools.

One Kuvempu Centenary schools has been started in each of the eight districts and Rs. 1.45 crore has been sanctioned for meeting the basic infrastructure facilities, he said.

The State Government had also started 18 Kasturba Residential schools for girls for which Rs. 2.90 cores has been sanctioned. Under the Mahiti Sindhu scheme, 222 high schools have been provided with computers and training centres have been established in collaboration with Microsoft for providing the needed training to the teachers in Dharwad and Gulbarga districts, he said.

Basavaraj Horatti, Minister for Science and Technology, expressed anguish over what he considered indiscriminate transfer of the teachers undertaken this year. There is a need for evolving a uniform policy, the Minister added.

Mr Horatti said that the State Government will ensure that primary school teachers get their salary on the fifth of every month shortly. Pralhad Joshi, Manjunath Kunnur, MPs, Jagadish Shettar, State Bharatiya Janata Party President, Veeranna Mathikatti, MLC, and Vinay Kulkarni, MLA, spoke. S.R. Morey, Minister for Municipal Administration, presided.

Vijay Bhaskar, Secretary, Department of Education, and Madan Gopal, Commissioner of Public Instruction, were present.