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NEW INITIATIVES IN KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA SANGATHAN
Kendriya Vidyalayas were established
in the year 1963-64, on the recommendation of the second Central Pay Commission, as a
welfare measure for the employees who are transferable throughout the county.
It marked the beginning of a new era for the
education of the children of Central Government Employees who could not refuse to go on
transfer and at the same time could not allow the studies of their wards to be disrupted. Starting with 20
schools in 1963-64, Kendriya Vidyalayas are now
871 in number having enrolment of about 8 lakh students and more than 40,000 teachers.
They are spread all over the country from the far
eastern State of Tripura to the Ran of Kutch in the west and from Leh (J&K) in the
north and Trivandrum and Andamans in the south. Salient features of Kendriya Vidyalayas
are as under:- 1. These are generally
established at places having a sizeable concentration of transferable Central Government
Employees including defence personnel. 2. The quality of
teaching is kept high by an appropriate teacher-pupil ratio and provision of experienced
teachers with high academic qualifications. 3. The same text-books
and syllabus are followed in all Kendriya Vidyalayas all over the country. 4. Kendriya Vidyalayas
are affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education for classes X and XII
examination. 5. Sanskrit is taught
from class V to IX. 6. Preference in
admission is given to those children whose parents had the higher number of transfers
during the preceding seven years. 7. No tuition fees are
charged from girls, SC/ST students and children of the employees of the KVS up to class
XII. In class IX to XII, tuition fee at
varying rates is charged from boys depending upon the income of the parents. Kendriya Vidyalayas were conceived
and came into being as pace-setters. The recruitment of staff is a nation-wide affair with
a high degree of choice for quality. Parents not only strongly desire to give their wards
good quality education but are also eager to give them an exposure to a highly competitive
field outside. Students in Kendriya
Vidyalayas exhibit a high degree of resilience despite moving every few years across the
country with their parents. Each such move
adds to their exposure to diversity in environment-physical and social and teaches them
necessary skills to face odds and yet achieve the goal of continuous, uniform and quality
education. A carefully conceived curriculum, a
uniformly split-up syllabus, text-books and the teachers’ guides prepared by the
NCERT and the CBSE, updated teaching methods, well-planned co-curricular activities, games
and sports, house and club activities coupled with expanding scout and guide movement,
adventure activities, a consistent homework supplementing class-work, library service,
projects ranging from collection to investigatory types, exposure of pupils to many
outside competitions like USO general knowledge test, Mathematics Olympiad, Science Quiz
Competitions, Commonwealth Essay Completions etc., use of audio-visual aids including
computers, non-formal learning opportunities through bulletin boards and excursions and
lastly, the internal assessment system and in-built evaluation procedure, all these and
more are integral features of Kendriya Vidyalayas. Every Kendriya Vidyalaya is a
miniature India in which students from all part of the country take the same oath, sing
the same song under the same flag in the same uniform and follow the same curriculum and
co-curricular programmes. Not only in curricular activities,
the KVS has been making determined efforts to better the quality of teaching and learning
in Kendriya Vidyalayas. The indicators of the academic standards are the results obtained
by the students in examinations conducted by the CBSE. There are: CLASS X
YEAR
KVS PASS %
CBSE PASS %
1997
79.11
64.27
1998
76.8
63.2
1999
77.9
64.4 CLASS XII
1997
83.31
78.50
1998
79.9
72.6
1999
83.1
74.68 In order to further improve the
working of Kendriya Vidyalayas, following changes have been brought out recently: 1. De-centralisation
of powers and involvement of the community in the administration of the Schools. An Executive
Committee has been formed for each school with the Chairman of the Vidyalaya Management
Committee as its Chairman, one parent representative, one eminent educationist,
one staff representative and the Principal. Wide ranging powers have been delegated to this
Committee for the day-to-day functioning of the school. These include academic and
administrative supervision, as well as financial controls. 2. Creation of
Resources at the School level for its normal requirements. A Pupils’
Fund and Maintenance and Development Fund has been created at the school level by charging
a small amount from each child every month. This
fund would remain with the school and would be spent as per the directions of the
Executive Committee. With this fund, the
schools would be in a position to carry out the usual annual maintenance and upkeep works
of the school building and their compound. Funds
would also be available for promoting various co-curricular activities for children and
for introducing computer education. 3. Provision of
computers in Kendriya Vidyalayas. All Kendriya Vidyalayas
have been asked to make arrangements for introduction of computers in the Schools.
Funds for this will be available from the money
generated by the school and would be supplemented by the Sangathan wherever required.
All the schools which are functioning in a proper
building and have a proper room to spare for this purpose would be introducing computer
education, immediately. 4. Efforts made for
better staff satisfaction. Steps have been
taken to remove the various difficulties experienced by the staff in different ways. Some
of these are as follows: (a) De-centralisation
of Pension. Pension for all staff
members was so far sanctioned by the KVS (Hqrs). This power has now been delegated to the
Regional Offices for the staff working in schools except for Principals and
Vice-Principals. The pension and all other pensionary benefits would now be sanctioned by
the Assistant Commissioners of the Regional Offices. (b)
De-centralisation
of account keeping of Provident Fund. The Provident
Fund Accounts of all the employees were so far maintained in the KVS (HQ). This work has
been de-centralised and given to the Regional Offices who will now be maintaining the
accounts and issuing the Annual Statements to the Staff. (c) De-centralisation
of powers to give GPF advance. The Principals of
the schools have now been given full powers for sanctioning advances from the GPF for the
entire staff working in the school. (d) Changes in Transfer
Policy to make it more objective. The transfer
guidelines have been amended to make them very detailed so that they could be operated
mechanically8 without any subjective interference from anyone. The Process has been made transparent so that its
objectivity could be seen by all the affected persons. 5. Changes made in
recruitment system for selecting the best available teachers. The process of recruitment has been
centralised and a system of conducting a written examination and thereafter interview has
been introduced. Recruitment so far was being
done at the Regional level wherein candidates were short listed for the purposes of
interview on the basis of their academic record. It
was found that there was a lot of disparity in the marks awarded by different Universities
and amongst candidates applying in different regions. To eliminate these, the recruitment of teachers and all other staff has been
centralised and is being done by the Hqrs. An
all India written examination was conducted for the recruitment of teachers based on which interviews were held for
making the final selection. Firm measures
were taken to ensure that the interviews are held with absolute fairness.
Several Interview Boards were constituted the
members of which were decided by lots on the date of interview itself.
The group of candidates to be interviewed by a
Board Member was also decided on the same morning to ensure that no favour could be shown
to any particular candidate. |
