Chief edu officers grilled during review meeting

Chief edu officers grilled during review meeting

 Chennai Performs The Worst 

Preetika.P@timesofindia.com 

Chennai : Chief education officers are struggling to meet targets, citing lack of personnel to conduct inspections in schools. Of all districts, Chennai emerged as the worst-performing, struggling to link bank accounts for scholarships, utilise hi-tech and language labs, and set up internet services in schools. On Thursday, chief education officers were grilled during a special meeting to review the status of initiatives and improve education in govt and govt-ai ded schools across the state.

Chennai chief education officer S Mars was not present during this meeting. The school education department wants to link all students to Aadhaar and bank accounts, and enhance the use of internet and hi-tech labs. These bank accounts are critical for ensuring direct benefit transfers (DBT) under various schemes aimed at preventing student dropouts. The department, which had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with India Post to open savings accounts for govt school students, had instructed chief education officers to fast-track this process back in June.

In Chennai, 90,000 out of one lakh students are still not linked to bank accounts. While districts such as Namakkal, Kanyakumari, and Erode are leading in these efforts, most chief education officers are struggling to carry out regular inspections. 

Chief minister M K Stalin recently inaugurated hi-tech labs in govt schools. Data shows many schools have yet to fully optimize hi-tech labs. In Chennai’s primary scho ols, only 6% students use the hi-tech lab for language upskilling, 7% for emotionalwellbeing, 29% for career guidance. Meanwhile, average use of these facilities is more than 50% in Namakkal, Perambalur, Kanyakumari, Dharmapuri, and Thanjavur. Some chief education officers were clueless about vacancies and the implementation of these projects, blaming a lack of operators to handle the groundwork. School education secretary S Madhumathi said “I had instructed chief education officers to inspect schools and prepare reports. I have not received a report from anyone yet.” Now, the department plans to install smart classrooms in middle schools by Nov. “Progress has been slow. We have to speed up,” she added.