Topic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
3. A public school system that guarantees universal access, good learning and all facilities has to be among the highest national priorities. Examine. (250 words)
Reference : The Hindu
Key demand of the question:
The absence of basic infrastructure like toilets, playgrounds and electricity in govt. schools speaks poorly of policy priorities. Here, the question demands us to write in detail the issues faced, the implications of same on education and the possible way forward.
Directive word:
Examine – When asked to ‘Examine’, we have to look into the topic (content words) in detail, inspect it, investigate it and establish the key facts and issues related to the topic in question. While doing so we should explain why these facts and issues are important and their implications.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
write a few introductory lines poor infrastructure conditions present in the Government schools in India. The lack of power in schools is taken note of by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development in its latest report on budgetary grants for school education and literacy for 2020-21.
Body:
Discuss the various infrastructural issues found in our education system.
The panel found from data for 2017-18, only 56.45% of government schools had electricity and 56.98% a playground, while almost 40% lacked a boundary wall.
neglect of toilet construction for children with special needs, failure to build toilets for girls in a third of secondary schools and laboratories for higher secondary science students etc.
Reasons for such poor conditions:
the allocation to the School Education and Literacy department has suffered a cut of 27.52%, amounting to ₹22,725 crore in the Budget Estimate for 2020-21,
Implications of lack of basic infrastructure on children and demographic dividend on large.
Discuss about the policy measures needed. Talk about the Delhi model of education or any other successful model which could rejuvenate the broken infrastructure of our schools.
Conclusion:
based on your discussion, form a fair and a balanced conclusion on the given issue.
