• As per Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023, covid pandemic caused unprecedented learning poverty.
• Learning poverty is defined as being unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10.
• Three-fourths of the children have come back to government schools as incomes and employment have shrunk.
• However, poor governance and politicisation resulted in non-hiking of school Budgets.
• Given the already unsatisfactory learning outcomes in schools, this situation demands an immediate response.
• In this context, there is urgent need to make reforms in government run educational institutions. 

Issues in Government School

• Why people do not want to send their kids to government primary schools in India:
• Poor infrastructure.
• Poor student to teacher ratio.
• Low education standards of teachers. Lack of dedication from teachers.
• Overloading of teachers with miscellaneous works.
• Political interference in the administration.
• Corruption in all affairs of the primary school.
• Lack of concern of state government in providing quality education.
• Government schools in most States have become the abode of children from vulnerable social groups.
• In such schools, the parents have limited disposable incomes and the education of girls often continues to be a formality, merely for bettering marriage prospects.
• Going beyond Central/State funding issues, it is necessary to improve governance in schools.
• Schools must shed their forlorn and dilapidated look, an outcome of the long school closure due to Covid.

Suggestions for improve in Government School

Improving a government school is the most pro-poor activity that any State can undertake.

Give responsibilities to Local governments and women’s collectives

• Local governments and women’s collectives should be given the responsibility for elementary schools with funds and functionaries.
• They must be authorized to fill any vacancy by rationalization or recruiting a community volunteer who has cleared the Teacher Eligibility Test.
• The devolved funds should be sufficient to meet the needs for basic learning and support.
• The school should become a community institution rather than be a government entity.
• It should be able to draw on voluntarism/donations and get the support of gadgets to ensure healthy learning outcomes.
• The physical and human infrastructure has to be adequate for learning to happen.

Training of teachers

• All teachers should be trained in the use of gadgets and course material.
• Every classroom must have a large TV and a good sound system to provide online lessons that supplement what is taught in class.

Give Mid-Day Meal responsibility to women SHG

• Mid-Day Meal responsibility must be handed over to the village level self-help group (SHG) of women.
• The Panchayat and School Management Committee shall be the supervisors of the SHG.
• Teachers should not have any role in the Mid-Day Meal scheme. They must only teach.

Develop public library

• Develop public libraries where older children in the village can study and prepare for jobs and admissions to good institutions.
• Such community institutions attract volunteers.
• Karnataka has done outstanding work on strengthening its public libraries and this has gains for school learning outcomes as well.

Use of innovative methods

• Use sound boxes, video films, play-way learning items, indoor and outdoor sports, cultural activities for learning on scale.
• Let toys-based learning start from early childhood learning, with the support of the Integrated Child Development Services.
• In any case, the New Education Policy 2022 mandates a continuum from ages 3 to 8 to ensure this important early beginning in life.

Give nutrition responsibility to schools 

• Nutrition challenges must be the school leadership’s responsibility, as too many committees only dilute convergent action.
• Field functionaries like Aanganwadi Sevikas, Ashas, Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) , and Panchayat Secretaries must all be made responsible for the well-being of children.
• To make a difference, healthcare management must be in partnership with the local government.

Community campaigns and regular school-level interactions with parents

• Teachers must build a relationship with every household to ensure children’s care and learning.
• Parental involvement can greatly improve learning outcomes.
• The Nipun Bharat Mission to ensure oral, written literacy and numeracy should become a people’s movement like the Total Literacy Campaign.

Disaggregate Central and State grants

• The Central and State grants be disaggregated gram panchayat-wise and urban local body-wise, to ensure the transfer of untied funds to schools, including salary payment.
• The school must be community managed and the State is at best the principal financing agent.
• Let the private sector adopt schools to make them better.

Education opens up a world of possibilities for individuals by empowering them with knowledge. Recently, Uttar Pradesh’s ‘Mission Kayakalpa’ for making schools attractive and an inviting place once again, is a great example to follow by the All States to improve the look of their schools. Currently the government schools face lack of vocational training, lack of competent teachers, increase in drop-out rate, an obsolete pedagogy, lack of infrastructure, and, most importantly, an apathetic government structure. Government should solve all issue based on priority like to create Back-to-school campaigns and re-enrolment drives, expanded nutrition programmes to address malnutrition and by increasing budget for school in budget.