PROBLEMS AND ISSUES
Size of the Population and Educational
Backwardness As mentioned earlier, Uttar Pradesh ranks first in population among the states in India. Nearly 86% of its people live in villages and about 21% constitute scheduled castes and tribes. The hill areas, Bundelkhand and eastern districts of the state are particularly backward economically and socially and the impact of successive five year plans has been mainly on the quantitative expansion of educational facilities as the limited resources avai- lable had to be utilised to meet the pressure of the public demand in this regard. However, the size of the population and its growth over the years has made the task of educational administra- tors and educationists a really challenging one. Despite all efforts, the level of literacy in the state has gone up merely to 21.77%. It is particularly low in case of women, hardly 11% of whom are literate. The preceding chapters have dealt with various facts of educational administration and its problems in facing the challenge of educational expansion and development. The endeavour in this chapter is to bring into focus some of the main pro- blems and issues, analyse them briefly and with a degree of objectivity, and draw attention to their possible and suggested solutions.
Reorienting Educational Administration We may first deal with the basic and general problem of bringing educational administration out of the wire of its routine and maintenance- oriented system. This appears to be a general administrative problem in all states in India. It is the responsibility of all those charged with deci- sion-making to see that administration responds to changing needs of the society in ferment. The task of an educational administrator today, accor- ding to Morphet John and Reller, is to "mobilise all needed resources of communities and states to improve the quality of education and to relate it more closely to community, state and national needs". It is more than mere administering and it calls for high qualities of leadership and initia- tive.
Furthermore, the task of administering has become so specialised and the problems so complex that they have to be viewed multi-dimensionally. A new look has to be taken of the existing systems of recruitment and training. As Frederick C. Mo- sher puts it, "The failure of a career system to accommodate the growing knowledge and changing requirements, to redefine its self-image and take steps to give reality to a new one, may lead to a slow and agonising decline in its control and influ- ence upon the area in which it operates........The challenges to career systems deriving from knowle- dge-explosion and the accompanying changes in conception of problems, technological and social, are a specially intensified case of a broader challen- ge of modifying institutions to keep up with the accelerating dynamics of our Culture." The administrative machinery at all levels, therefore, needs to be geared to respond fully to the challen- ges thrown by the process of modernisation and development.
Area of Local Administration It has been indicated that one of the major problems of educational administration in Uttar Pradesh is the need to strengthen that administration at the district and block levels and to provide experts in different subjects for super- vising academic work from a specialist's angle and intensively. For achieving this objective, it might
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be necessary to separate administrative work from supervising function and to create educational districts and zonal officers on the pattern of sub- divisional officers for areas within the district.
The democratic decentralisation in the form of the transfer of the administration of elementary education to panchayti raj institutions is reported to have created various problems in many states. In Uttar Pradesh a new dimension has been added in the form of duality of administration of primary and middle school education. While the teachers of junior and senior basic (middle) schools have been taken over by the Basic Shiksha Parishad, the schools as such continue to be the responsibi- lity of the local bodies, namely, zila parishads, nagar palikas, and nagar mahapalikas.
The primary purpose of associating local bodies with the administration of education at school level was to enlist local cooperation and support for educational programmes like construction of school buildings, providing mid-day meals and supplying free books and uniforms to children of weaker and backward sections of the community. Such association, it is understood, has not been an unmixed blessing in Uttar Pradesh. It has been observed to have led to frequent and indiscriminate transfers of teachers, involvement of teachers in local and factional politics at the cost of teaching, indiscipline, and disregard for suggestions made by the inspecting officers concerning impro- vement of instruction. The dual control under which officers of the education department at the block and zila parishad levels work also creates difficulties. These officers are answerable both to the local body and to the state government in the discharge of their duties. Such an arrangement would appear to be not only illogical from the management angle but is also liable to hamper the educational process.
Size of Administrative Machinery Though it has been reported that work-load of the officers is determined from time to time accor- ding to exigencies of the situation and new staff is provided on this basic, no formal work-study has been undertaken in the recent past either in respect of the education secretariat or the directorate of education in Uttar Pradesh. It would, therefore, appear desirable that such a study with respect to whole of the education department including the field machinery is undertaken and the staff provi- ded on a rational basis in accordance with the results of the study.
Improving Institutional Administration As regards institutional administration, three, main problems seem to emerge. Taking into con- sideration the crucial role of the heads of institu- tions, it is considered necessary that adequate attention is paid to their training and reorientation. For this purpose adequate and appropriate facili- ties need to be created either by strengthening the State Institute of Education and other specia- lised institutions in the state or by modifying their programmes for the purpose. A few of the teacher training institutions in the state could also be converted into in-service institutions in view of the fact that the pre-service teacher-training facili- ties are now more than enough.
Secondly, a scheme of sharing of school facili- ties like accommodation, library, laboratory, play- field etc through the school complexes might be drawn up and implemented vigorously. Mere ad hoc arrangements between the institutions on their own initiative may not be enough. Thirdly, the institution of parent-teacher association might be promoted with a view to seek the involvement and cooperation of the community in the teaching- learning process and in building tip the institutions and supplementing their physical, financial and other resources. These associations can also help the educational institutions in gauging the needs of the community and responding to them in a more effective manner.
Need for Training Though there is some provision for in-service training of district inspectors of schools and deputy inspectors of schools, the state government may consider to devise appropriate programmes for the training of their senior administrative personnel in the education department with the help of institutions like the National Staff College for Educational Planners and Administrators, New Delhi. It has also been suggested that efforts should be made to achieve balance in administra- tion. Fully equipped academic and administrative research programmes may be set up at the state level with branches at regional level. Steps may also
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have to be taken to establish a state staff college for the preparation and in-service training of edu- cational administrators of various levels.
Need for Coordinated Planning and Imple-
mentation In the field of educational planning it is neces- sary that it should be done in a coordinated manner at five levels of administration in any state : secretariat, directorate, regional, district and institution. However, in Uttar Pradesh, as in other states in the country, educational planning is done for the most part at the secretariat and directorate levels. There is acute need to involve regional and district educational authorities, heads of institutions, teachers, parents and community leaders in the process of plan formulation to make it more realis- tic and meaningful. It has also been suggested that specially trained personnel should be provided for the work of plan coordination at secretariat level and for its evaluation and implementation at different levels. Also, there is a need to train field level functionaries in educational planning inclu- ding collection of statistics, their tabulation and analysis. The field authorities have a particularly significant role in the establishment of schools, pro- vision of buildings and equipment for institutions, enlisting public cooperation and support for streng- thening physical facilities of schools and enriching their programmes.
It has also been pointed out that the present organisation and methods of the statistical cell of the directorate of education are inadequate in view of the comprehensiveness of educational data and its effective collection. To avoid statistical discre- pancies, it has been suggested that a trained statistical assistant may be provided in the office of the district inspector of schools. It has also been indicated that a printed compilation register should be provided at the district level and the the scope of statistical workshops should be broa- dened. Extension services scheme also needs to be strengthened further so that every training college may have an extension service centre.
Scarce Physical Resources and Quality of
Education As regards the administration of physical resources, it has been pointed out that the present procedure for setting up new institutions is not wholly satisfactory. It has been expressed that in the interest of raising the quality of education there is need to put some check on the unplanned growth of institutions even if all other conditions for their setting up are fulfilled. In the case of local body institutions particularly there seems to be a strong case for adequately enforcing the norms for providing satisfactory physical facilities and other amenities.
Need for Effective Audit In the area of financial management, it has been observed that the existing audit arrangements are not considered to be satisfactory. Constant increase in the number of institutions hampers thorough checking of accounts and the follow-up concerning compliance of audit notes. It has been suggested that to improve the situation the num- ber of audit parties should be increased. This would appear to be specially important in a state like Uttar Pradesh, where the proportion of aided institutions is very high and large sums have to be released as grant-in-aid.
Inspection and Supervision By far the most crucial area of problems in the field of educational administration appears to be that of inspection and supervision. These pro- blems largely emanate from the paramount impor- tance of these functions in the management of education. The district inspector of schools, who is mainly responsible for the task of inspection and supervision in the district, may be pronounced to be the hub of educational administrative machi- nery in the field. This functionary, however, has to perform such a variety of functions, sometimes unrelated to education, like census work, election work, small-pox and malaria eradication, family planning etc. apart from other administrative duties that he is hardly able to devote more than 31% (vide table V of chapter VIII) of his time to inspectional work and on travel relating to it. In fact, the district inspector of schools performs, in varying proportions, academic, para-academic and non-academic functions. While supervision and inspection form the substance of his job, there may be considerable scope for delegation or sharing of his para-academic and non-academic duties with other functionaries of the education department or other department in the district. Tables I and II give an idea of the problems and difficulties normally encountered by the
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Table I : Problem and Difficulties Faced
Problem and Difficulties
Sl.
No. Teachers Public Educational Institutions Superiors juniors Local Government
Agencies
1. Problem of salary Interference Inadequate money Nil Shortage of Interference by zila
distribution, and in transfers for buildings money for parishads in
shortage of clerks T.A. administration
2. Indiscipline among Political Postal delay ham- Nil Nil Nil
teachers pressure pering the work
3. Indiscipline among Pressure for Delay in compliance Nil Nil Nil
teachers immediate of orders, and poor
solution condition of accounts
of private institutions
4. Teachers seeking Political Lack of accommodation Nil Nil Records and
home postings and pressure accounts are not
transfers properly maintained
5. Apathy towards Lack of res- Deplorable condition Nil Nil Lack of response
duty, and down- ponse to im- of school buildings, and towards construction
ward trend in provement shortage of furniture of school buildings,
their efficiency of schools, and shortage of
and support equipment
to personal
grievances of
teachers
district inspector of schools and the zila basic shi- ksha adhikari in Uttar Pradesh in dealing with teachers, teachers organisations, public, educational institutions, superiors, subordinates, local govern- ments, private managements, supervision of tea- ching, and examination and evaluation. It may be mentioned that the responses contained in the table are free and independent. They relate to a representative sample of 5 districts in the state and have been recorded by the inspection authori- ties working at places distant from each other. It may be added that while interpreting this table one has to bear in mind the fact that some public servants are reluctant to report their experiences freely for fear of being misunderstood or penalised. It is also possible that a frustrated employee may be over-critical of his own organisation and its functioning. Neither of these factors appear to apply to the present case.
The material contained in the two tables constitutes valuable information. In the context of the present educational situation in India it is being repeatedly urged that the key-position of the
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by District Inspectors of Schools
in dealing with
Private Managements Teachers' Organisations Own Office Supervision of Examination and
Teaching Evaluation
Records and accounts Interference in Nil Shortage of trained There is no entry of
not kept properly work teachers monthly evaluation
in annual examin-
ation
Disputes among private Nil Shortage of Problem of trans- Examination centres
managements money for portation located in remote
T.A. places
Interpretation of Unnecessary Untrained & Pressure of other Difficulty to organise
education act and code arguments inadequate miscellaneous work examination work
in their own way staff in institutions of
private manage-
ments due to sub-
normal students and
teachers
Late supply of Nil Insufficient Lack of transport Nil
information staff and
absence of
telephone
Managerial disputes Multifarious Shortage of Shortage of equip- Shortage of time to
demands, clerks and ment and proper check all examination
absence of aware- office accom- training of teachers centres, and growing
ness towards duty, modation tendency to use unfair
and lack of initia- means
tive to condemn
defaulting teachers
district inspector of schools in educational planning and administration should be recognised and necessary steps taken to make it really so. Many inspecting officers have observed that in dealing with teachers they are faced with problems of indiscipline, lack of cooperation and external pressure for transfers and other demands to be conceded. They have also mentioned teacher- management disputes, as one of the major problems which takes a good deal of their time and energy. This problem can be particularly acute in states like Uttar Pradesh where an overwhelming majority of schools are under private management. Accor- ding to the Report of the Study Group on Supervi- sion and Inspection (NCERT-1969), the number of man-hours spent by the district level inspec- ting officers in U.P. in handling teacher-manage- ment disputes is approximately 400 per annum which apparently comes to one hour per day.
Lack of buildings, accomodation and furniture, shortage of trained staff, equipment and teaching- aids, and heavy load of office work have been cited as other problems and difficulties. In the interest of efficiency and effectiveness of work it is necessary that steps are taken to provide the inspecting officers with the necessary assisting staff, transport facilities as well as other resources so as
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Table II : Problems and Difficulties Faced
Problems and Difficulties
Sl.
No. Teachers Public Educational Superiors juniors Local Govt.
Institutions Agencies
1. Indiscipline and Anonymous com- Inacessibility of Nil Discontented Nil
trade unionism plaints and political institutions transferred
pressures hands do not
work
2. Indiscipline within Careless in com- Nil Nil Nil Nil
private managements pliance
3. Indiscipline among Pressures for imme- Delay In compliance Nil Nil Nil
teachers diate solutions to of orders, and aw-
their problems ful condition of
accounts
4. Extraneous pressure Misbehaviour with Internal disputes Nil Nil Nil
of Madhyamik office staff within managements
Shikshak Sangh
5. - Local leadership Delay in compliance Nil Nil Nil
creating difficulties of orders because
in administration of indirect control
on institutions