In a bid to improve the quality of education in the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is planning to launch a teacher training programme.
The training will be conducted through regional education conferences, where teachers will receive guidance on enhancing student learning outcomes. However, if student performance continues to decline, teachers will be held accountable for the lack of improvement.
According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), a nationwide rural household survey that accesses children in government schools, there are serious educational challenges in Pune. The report, published in January, highlights that 40% of students from Grades 6 to 8 struggle with division and basic mathematics, and many students fail to recognise letters or numbers up to 99. Half of the students aged 5 to 16 have difficulty solving arithmetic problems, it added. The report also revealed that enrollment in government schools has been declining, with an increase in smartphone usage among students.
Asha Raut, Deputy Commissioner, Secondary and Technical Education Officer, PMC, said, "I'm looking after the infrastructure aspects of the schools, and we have quite a few suggestions regarding improving the infrastructure. Once the PMC budget is out, we will start the work of repair and the installation of cammers. Good infrastructure will also help the students perform better academically."
Despite the PMC allocating significant funds to education annually, learning outcomes have not seen the expected improvement. To address this, Additional Commissioner Prithviraj BP chaired a meeting with education department officials, emphasising the need for immediate corrective measures.
Sharad Javedkar, an education activist, said, "Parents' perception about PMC and government schools is very negative, as it is also true that most of these schools do not provide adequate facilities. If the perception is changed, there will be no issues of declining student strength. Secondly, I have observed that PMC has spent a good amount on infrastructure, and most schools have good infrastructure, but they do not focus on maintaining it, like toilets, computer labs and buildings. These should be maintained from time to time so that students could fully benefit from the facilities. Also, teachers should not be burdened with extra non-teaching duties like election duties or other administrative tasks. Because most of the time, teachers are assigned non-teaching duties, which hampers the education of the students. Occasionally, these duties are fine, but overburdening teachers with other administrative work is not. Additionally, I have noticed that the morale of these teachers is very low. They don’t take pride in their jobs or the fact that they are imparting knowledge to economically downtrodden students. They should take an interest in what they do, only then will students benefit and this initiative will work."
Meanwhile, The Free Press Journal tried to connect with PMC Education Officer Sunanda Vakhare but did not receive a response.
