Gujarat: IAS Officer Dhaval Patel, who was assigned to Shala Praveshotsav (school enrollment) duty, upon finding the students in a tribal school in Chhotaudepur district struggling to read and unable to perform basic mathematic calculations, wrote to the Gujarat state education department about the “rotten” education being imparted to the students there. Prompted by his observations, the education department sought a report from the school authorities.
Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Dhaval Patel, who serves as the commissioner of geology and mining in Gandhinagar, was shocked to see the state of education in Chhotaudepur, a district that is dominated by tribals.
In the letter that he sent to the education department on June 16, Patel described the education system “rotten”. He emphasized that the current education system will only ensure that the tribal’s will continue to work as labourers in the future and never advance in life.
Patel visited six different government-run primary schools in Chhotaudepur district on March 13 and 14, as a part of his duty for the Shala Praveshotsav drive.
Patel in his letter, which he sent to the education secretary Vinod Rao, talking about his visit to Timla primary school, said that students of Class 8 were unable to read fluently and read “every letter of a word separately as they could not read an entire word.” They were also finding it difficult to perform basic math calculations.
At Bodgam primary school, he said, students of 8 standard were not able to name the antonyms of simple Gujarati works like “day” and “brightness”. Furthermore, a girl student could not point were Gujarat and the Himalayas were on the Indian map.
At another school, students of Class 5 were not able to perform simple arithmetic, failing to subtract 18 from 42.
Kuber Dindor, Gujarat’s education minister, who also oversees the portfolio for tribal development, requested a report from relevant officials prompted by Dhaval Patel’s findings. Addressing reporters on Monday he said, “I have requested my department’s representatives to give a comprehensive report so that we can make the required changes.”
Jumping on the opportunity, Manoj Doshi, opposition member from Gujarat Congress, criticizing the education system in Gujarat said, “This is especially true for the poor children of tribal areas from Chhotaudepur. The report indicates how the Gujarat government’s entire education system works.”
GPCC President Shaktisinh Gohil said that the letter (submitted by the IAS officer) is an eye opener on education quality in government schools and that the government must act quickly to improve education.
