HP has the best teacher pupil ratio

Shimla, Aug 12 (UNI) Himachal Pradesh, with one teacher for every 17 students, has one of the best teacher-pupil ratios in the country, said Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.

''The state has a huge manpower of about 50,000 teachers, which includes 42.23 per cent women teachers in primary and 28.36 per cent in upper primary sections,'' the Chief Minister said in the review meeting of the Education Department held here today.

There are over 12.50 lakh enrolment of the students in the vast network of over 15,000 educational institutions in the government sector. The percentage of girls in all schools is 47.27 per cent and that in government schools is 49.22 per cent.

He said over the years the pass percentage had increased substantially and the drop out rate had minimised to just negligible.

Mr Dhumal said that Hamirpur, Bilaspur, Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti districts had registered cent per cent enrolment and only a few children which were severely disabled or mentally challenged were left out. Efforts were being made to provide trainers to educate such children at home, he added.

Mr Dhumal emphasised the need to motivate the parents of those children who were not being sent to schools for formal education where the local teachers could play pivotal role.

Mr Dhumal said the state would implement the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan to develop senior secondary schools accessible and affordable to the children in the age group of 15-16, improve quality of education by making all secondary schools conform to prescribed norms, remove gender, socio-economic and disability barriers so that universal access was achieved by the year 2017.

He said the scheme would be on the funding pattern of 75:25 by the Centre and State. The scheme aimed at having at least one good senior secondary school in every development block having innovative curriculum and qualified teachers, he added.

The CM also said the earlier schemes of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan had yielded encouraging results and had been instrumental in strengthening the infrastructure and improve the quality of education at the educational institutions.

He said the state government would be developing one government degree college in every district as centre of par excellence to bring qualitative improvement in the education system.

UNI XC PS AKJ HS1738