Bhubaneswar: In a bid to strengthen and improve school education in Odisha, the state government Thursday decided to merge the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) and the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) into a single board.
This was revealed during a review meeting of the School and Mass Education (S&ME) department, chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, at Lok Seva Bhawan here.
Highlighting that achieving the vision of a prosperous Odisha by 2036 requires a strong focus on school education, the CM said steps will be taken to regularise schematic primary teachers.
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Currently, Odisha has 1,60,319 teaching posts across 45,292 primary schools. As per the NEP-2020, an additional 39,366 teaching posts will be created.
In addition, 5,067 teaching positions will become vacant by December 2025. “Combining all these, 44,433 posts will be filled within the next three years – approximately 15,000 posts each year,” Majhi said.
To strengthen school education, the need for a single education board in the state was expressed during the meeting.
Accordingly, a decision was taken to merge the BSE and the CHSE into a single board. Currently, while students from Classes I to VIII are provided free textbooks, only SC and ST students in Classes IX and X receive free textbooks.
The CM decided that free textbooks will now be provided to all students in Classes IX and X, regardless of category.
Recognising that health is equally important along with education for students, a decision was taken to appoint ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) in hostels.
One ANM or multipurpose health worker will be appointed for every 300 students.
It was also decided that the approval process for new private schools in Odisha will be made entirely online.
The CM emphasised the importance of providing education to tribal children in their mother tongue.
“This approach would facilitate better linguistic communication with the students and improve the quality of education,” Majhi said.
In this context, steps will be taken to establish a multilingual education centre in Koraput in collaboration with SCSTRTI.
For the education of differently-abled children, regular teachers who have completed BEd in Special Education will be appointed as resource persons in different clusters.
A decision was also taken to develop SCERT in line with the NCERT.
The state government has also decided to strengthen the Directorate of Textbook Publication and Marketing. Among others, S&ME Minister Nityananda Gond was present.
PNN