Arunachal Pradesh to revamp education, closes down 400 schools

Pema Khandu, chief minister, Arunachal Pradesh has announced that the State government has been revamping the entire education scenario and closing down schools with zero enrolments.

The number of government schools in the State has increased from only three since Independence to more than 3,000, even though the quality of education has not seen the desired rise.

According to the minister, so far about 400 zero enrolment schools across Arunachal Pradesh, and decided to select one school in each of the 60 assembly constituencies to be developed as a model school with all facilities.

The permanent campus of the Government College at Bomdila in West Kameng district was inaugurated on November 16, 2021, Tuesday.

The chief minister called upon community-based organisations to visit their areas and recommend which schools may be shut down and which schools in a periphery can be clubbed into one.

The new permanent campus of the college is situated in the outskirts of Bomdila town, the district headquarters, in a 70-acre plot. Established in 1988, the college was being run in a building of the Higher Secondary school. The minister thanked the people of the village for the donation of the land.

According to the minister, the government is aware of the shortfalls both in manpower and infrastructure of the 19 government colleges in the state, which are all affiliated to the Rajiv Gandhi University, the lone central university in the state. Besides the 19 government colleges, which cater to more than 15,000 students, the state has nine private colleges and two technical institutions, the Northeast East Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST) and NIT.

At present 478 assistant professors are teaching in the 19 government colleges whereas about 400 more are needed. There was a shortage of about 110 staff in these colleges.

The minister directed the education commissioner to personally process for recruitment of the said manpower by bringing it up on file in the cabinet meeting due to be held in December.

To the demands for proper internal roads in the campus, enhancement of intake capacity of the boys and girls hostels and introduction of science stream, the minister called upon the authorities concerned to process for the same and submit as soon as possible to the government for further action and approval.

The request for college buses was acknowledged by the minister as the new campus is about 6-7 km away from the main town and caters to more than 700 students.