Guwahati, April 6 (PTI): Assam Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today said the government will focus on quality of teachers and will not accept certificates from any doubtful institutes while appointing them.
Sarma, during a discussion on education in the Assembly, said his focus is to improve the system, keeping in mind the students' interest on top.
"Students have the fundamental right of quality education. Unless we have quality teachers, it is not possible. In the venture schools or colleges, no one knows how the teachers are appointed," he said.
Countering the appeals of MLAs across all political parties that a humanitarian approach should be adopted for retaining jobs of teachers, Sarma said the human rights of students is of topmost importance.
"Teachers are getting certificates from varsities like Magadh University and Vinayaka University. This time, when we will provincialise ( to bring under Assam government service) the venture institutes, we are going to check each certificates," he added.
Around 6,000 teachers whose jobs were provincialised recently, 95 per cent of them carried certificates from either Magadh or Vinayaka University, he informed the House.
The minister also criticised the MLAs, particularly the BJP MLAs, for seeking transfer requests of teachers and said that by doing this, the schools are getting affected.
"In the secondary level, we have more than 14 lakh students and 62,761 teachers along with over 7,000 contract teachers. This brings the teacher-student ratio to 1:14. This is because, in some cases there are hardly any teachers, while in some schools there are more teachers than required," he added.
Amid a noisy scene for a brief period over his remark on Right to Education Act and necessity to continue teaching of Arabic language, Sarma said the government wants to modernise Madrassa education by focusing more on subjects like mathematics, science and computer science.
