Dholpur, july 1. In an exemplary punitive order, a district collector commuted the sentence of a class IX student found guilty of assaulting and injuring a classmate, to nurture five trees on his school campus for three months.
Neha Giri, district collector of Dholpur who chaired an enquiry committee into the incident at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Dholpur (JNV-D) which had recommended the rustication and transfer of the student, overruled the verdict. “I requested the committee and the JNV-D management to give him the responsibility of nurturing the campus garden instead,” said Giri.

 

West Bengal
Bizarre segregation

Malda, July 2. In an initiative to check incidents of sexual harassment of girl students, the government-run Girija Sundari Vidya Mandir School in the state’s Malda district has directed boy and girl students to attend school on alternate days.

Headmaster Rabindranath Pande said the school was forced to take this step following numerous complaints of sexual harassment. “It was therefore decided that girl students will attend school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and boys on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Since we have introduced this system, classes have been conducted smoothly,” he informed the media.

However Mahua Das, president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, described the school principal’s directive as “bizarre” and said the council has not endorsed the order. Moreover state education minister Partha Chatterjee has ordered an inquiry. “Such a decision can never be supported. It should be immediately withdrawn,” he said.

 

Uttar Pradesh
Social media warning

Bahraich, July 4. Addressing a government school function, minister of state for basic education Anupama Jaiswal warned that school teachers found to be active on social media during school hours will face stringent action, including termination of service.

Jaiswal warned that “no one’s word will be able to save” them if they are caught. “You cannot hide when you are online,” she said, reiterating that teachers must cooperate with the government’s mission of providing quality basic education to all students in government schools.

 

Uttarakhand
NIT-U promise

Dehradun, July 23. A 200-acre plot in Sumari, Pauri district, has been selected to host the permanent campus of the National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand. The foundation for it will be laid in September.

This assurance was given by Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal, Union human resource development minister, to the state’s higher education minister Dhan Singh Rawat when the latter called on him in New Delhi, according to a press release of the Uttarakhand government.

More than 100 students of the National Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand had returned home en masse last year after a prolonged agitation in protest against the lack of adequate infrastructure at the institute’s temporary campus in Shrinagar. On Dr. Pokhriyal’s assurance that work on constructing the permanent NIT-U campus will begin soon, the students have resumed their studies.

 

Tripura
NESO language statement

Agartala, July 30. The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO), a confederation of eight student bodies of the region, has urged the Central government to bear in mind the diversity of the seven states of the north-east before finalising the National Education Policy 2019.

In a statement, NESO demanded that regional languages are accorded due importance by including them in the eighth schedule. “No language should be made compulsory. The Central government is trying to surreptitiously impose Hindi as the national language of the country through the NEP. This will never be accepted,” said the joint statement.

“Though its languages policy was revised in June, we still have apprehensions that there may be attempts to impose the language in the North-east,” says Sunil Debbarma, executive member of NESO.

 

Haryana
Model schools programme

Chandigarh, July 26. Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced that the Top 100 government senior and higher secondary schools of the state will be developed as model schools on the basis of evaluation of their board exam results and infrastructure in the academic year 2019-20.

Moreover, these new ‘Super 100 Centres’ will be exclusively for government school students where the most meritorious will be provided test prep coaching for competitive examinations such as JEE Mains, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and other admission exams into engineering, medical and law colleges, he said.
The state’s education minister Ram Bilas Sharma and 200 district and block education officers and 500 best-performing principals were present on the occasion.

Paromita Sengupta with bureau inputs