PANJIM: Appalled by the drop in the quality of school education, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday pulled up school headmasters for the poor performance of students from the State in the National Achievement Survey (NAS).
As per the NSA report 2021 released in June, Goa students’ average performance in mathematics remained below the national average across Classes III, V, VIII and X. Students’ scores also fluctuated between below and above the national average for subjects like languages, social science and science.
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Addressing the State Level Headmasters Conference, the Chief Minister also pointed out the school’s failure to take initiative in introducing new job-oriented or skill-oriented courses.
Sawant, who is also Education Minister, said that the State government was blamed for students’ poor performance in the NAS. He said that despite providing all the necessary infrastructure, good salaries and facilities to schools and teachers, the schools have failed to achieve their goals.
“As per the NAS, our students’ performance was less than the national average in mathematics and science. When the report was released, who was blamed? No schools were blamed–I, as the education minister, was blamed,” he said.
The two-day conference was organised by the Goa Headmasters Association, with the theme ‘Enabling School Leaders to achieve Vision NEP 2020’.
Further, Sawant said the race by schools to achieve 100 per cent results in the Board examinations, was leading to a huge number of students dropping out in Class IX. “How will we educate the dropouts and make them employable?” he questioned.
The Chief Minister came down heavily on schools for focusing on increasing classrooms only for standard streams like Arts, Commerce and Science to ‘accommodate’ some teachers. “We are continuously producing only graduates, and not talent or skilled youth. It is sad to say that no institute has come up with a proposal to start a drone school, which is done in other States?” he said.
He called upon academic institutions in Goa to start new courses in sectors like hospitality, logistics, trade, research and innovations and drone tech, among others.
