Session half done, but many students yet to get textbooks

Gurgaon: For the last year, Priya (name changed), a class 6 student at a government school in Pataudi, has been studying without any textbook. She is among the many students in the city who failed to find a partner in the book-exchange programme rolled out by the state as a stop-gap arrangement to address the issue of non-availability of textbooks in the government schools across Haryana.
“I didn’t receive any book last year as well as this year. Teachers say that the government hasn’t released books. So, they dictate notes and we rely on them for our studies. At times, teachers send pictures of the pages from their books and I study from that,” the class 6 student said.
A total of 85,000 students from classes 1 to 8 in the city have been studying without books ever since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out last year. With half of the current academic session (2021-22) over, most of these students in the government schools are also waiting for the direct benefit transfer (DBT) announced by the state education department earlier.
In June this year, the state education minister Kanwar Pal had expressed the inability of the education department to provide free-of-cost textbooks to the students of classes 1 to 8 — as mandated under the Right to Education (RTE) Act — due to a delay in the tendering process and the Covid-19 hurdles for getting books printing. To compensate for the unavailability of the books, the minister had announced that the government will directly transfer a sum of Rs 250 each to student from classes 1 to 5 and Rs 400 each to students from classes 6 to 8 directly. The sum would be credited to the bank accounts of students through direct benefit transfer. During the Assembly session in August, Pal had reiterated his commitment.
While the education department claims that funds were transferred to a majority of the students last week, school teachers and parents, TOI spoke to, said otherwise.
“I have my two children studying in Kadipur school and neither of them has received books or money. Last year, too, my kids studied without textbooks. In fact, they haven’t received money for midday meals or getting cooked meals at schools even when schools have started to call students,” Ratan Kumar, a parent, said.
The education department said fund transfer was underway and they were preparing a database of the students who have been left out. “There’s no need to panic. Each child will get the money promised by the government. Due to some data mismatch, a few students have not received the money. We are making a list of all such students and will transfer money to them after addressing the issues. Additionally, we had started the concept of book banks last year when the printing of the textbooks stopped. We are continuing it this year, too.Students may reach out to their school heads for the same,” a district education department official said.
Teachers and the school heads, however, have pointed out that since there was a huge influx of students in government schools, uploading bank account and other details were still underway. They also claimed that several banks were not cooperating to open bank accounts for the students.
Dushyant Thakran, district head of Haryana Prathmik Shikshak Sangh, said, “Due to unprecedented spike in admissions this year there was a lot of students’ data to be processed and uploaded on MIS. In many cases, there’s serious inconsistency in data and that is one of the hurdles for DBT. Moreover, the admission process remains incomplete unless banks open zero-balance accounts. This year, banks aren’t cooperating. A significant number of students are still without bank accounts. Unless this is fixed, the money transfer will just be an eyewash and many will remain excluded.”
Credit Source – https://ift.tt/3kWCftq

The post Session half done, but many students yet to get textbooks appeared first on Stay in Gurgaon.