The Hindu Business Line : Project Siksha

THE Project Siksha jointly launched on December 9 by the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Microsoft Corporation with the laudable objective of making school teachers throughout the State technology-savvy is a momentous step in the direction of raising education standards by helping the teaching community maximise its potential. It is an ambitious programme intended to benefit 80,000 teachers and 35 lakh school students over a five year period.

But the first essential pre-requisite for its achieving its stated objective is to bring about radical changes in the rules and procedures of the Education Department.

The aided schools, in particular, find their initiative and creativity dampened by the deadweight of departmental control, forcing them to get the approval of educational authorities for even minor matters, such as grant of leave, acceptance of resignation, sanction of increment, incentive, selection grade and promotion, surrender of earned leave by staff, every stage of disciplinary proceedings, termination of services of even a waterman or a scavenger and manning of, say, the computer section.

In fact, there is not one aspect of management of aided schools that does not require the counter-signature or concurrence of some official or other of the Department. This is regardless of the fact that the members of the governing bodies of many of those schools are eminent persons with experience far superior to that of the minor functionaries who hold up decisions, sometimes for years.

Another curious feature is that the offices of the Department at some places are apparently starved of funds to replenish the stock of materials like stationery, furniture and the like; so much so the staff there allegedly pressure the school representatives eager to get pending references cleared to buy those accessories spending the school money. Of course, this is in addition to the ever present and unavoidable demand for "gratification" as a pre-condition for disposal of cases.

So long as the thousands of schools all over the State are hamstrung by oppressive bureaucratic rigidities and delays from acting in their best judgment, the prospects of Project Siksha making headway as per expectations are dim. Therefore, the question of freeing the managements of educational institutions from bureaucratic shackles does not brook delay.

B. S. Raghavan