SRINAGAR: Private Schools’ Association of Jammu and Kashmir (PSAJK) has welcomed the government step to allow schools to conduct class 8 examinations instead of SIE (State Institute of Education) and DIET (District Institute of Education and Training).
The Association while welcoming yesterday’s statement of Advisor Khurshid Ahmad Ganai at Baramulla has termed it as a good omen for the education sector. The Advisor Ganai had at Baramulla announced that schools have been entrusted to conduct the annual examinations from current academic session that were previously conducted by SIE and DIET. “This is one of the biggest news for education sector in recent times. Earlier the centralised examination conducted by SIE and DIET had become worthless and loss its relevance due to host of problems. Markings were biased, element of corruption had crept in, no truthful evaluation of children could take place,” said G N Var chairman PSAJK. “Now the entire system will get streamlined.”
The Association termed it as an academically viable decision which will ensure every child is assessed properly. “The earlier examinations were sheer wastage of time and resources. The schedule would often clash with interests of schools and the situation on ground. There would be frequent postponements of papers and even after exams the time would be wasted in checking, evaluation etc. Now schools can conduct exams as per their convenience and declare results accordingly without wasting any time. Schools don’t have to wait for SIE date sheet,” said Var. “Secondly there is a huge learning gap between children of private schools and government schools. The single exam was unable to do justice with their evaluation. Under new system there would be fair evaluation as schools would self assess the performance of their students. We will achieve the objectives of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation.”
The association said that it will also eliminate corruption. “There were reports of fudging of marks and manipulation by few vested interests. The government would end up with unreliable data about students thus hampering its long term planning. Now that thing will be eliminated and system will have hassle free and transparent evaluation. It will also reduce the school dropout rate,” said Var. “The new system will make education sector to be at par with the other states in terms of conducting of examinations of class 8.”
The Association said that another benefit of the new government order will be that SIE and DIET will be freed of the huge work of conducting examinations. From now on they will work towards teacher training programme which is their original mandate and hep in propagating quality teaching. (PTK)
