THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A total of 141 government schools in the state will be converted to ‘international schools’ from the next academic year, Education Minister C Raveendranath has said. He was inaugurating the state-level workshop on ‘File Audit’ initiated by the Directorate of Public Instructions at its headquarters on Tuesday. “Steps have been taken to upgrade 141 schools to international standards at the time of Praveshanolsavam next year. Funds for the same has been allotted,” said Raveendranath while making it clear the General Education Protection Mission being implemented by the government was a huge success.
“We made a history by enrolling 1,86,000 more students at government schools this academic year. This is a record indeed. In fact, this has been recorded after a long 27 years,” he said.Raveendranath said the file audit system would give a positive change in each and every officesunder the department and would reflect on the academic performance of the students.
“Umpteen number of files are pending in some offices during an inspection carried out by top officers of the Education Department. So we decided to start a new mission for the speedy disposal of pending files. A positive approach is needed from the education staff which can only make a change in the existing system of bureaucracy. Our graph is heading upwards in terms of education and student admissions. Hence we should take care not to lag behind again like previous years,” he said.
The Education Minister also reminded the officers of the department that “students are the ultimate beneficiary” of speedy disposal of files. General Education Secretary A Shahjahan who presided over the function said that it was the retired staffs and teachers who suffered a lot due to the pending files.
“We should know that all the staff would retire one day. Hence we should have some empathy towards the retired persons who frequent the offices for the things to be done. So file audit can send a clear message to the staff who are sitting on files for months and years,” he said. Director of Public Instruction K V Mohan Kumar delivered a seminar on ‘File Audit’ followed by an interactive session.
In an analysis conducted by the Education Department, it was found the number of contempt of court cases against the government are on the rise. This clearly indicates the time limit prescribed by the courts while rendering judgment is not complied with while processing the files and thus inviting contempt action from the respective courts.