EDUCATION

Evaluation of literacy centres in December

 

COOCH BEHAR, Oct. 17: Evaluation of the existing Continuing Education Centres (CEC) in Cooch Behar district will be conducted in December. Prior to the proposed second phase of evaluation a survey will be conducted in November. The first phase of the evaluation was done in 2005.

 

Advanced Survey Research Centre (ASRC), engaged by the Indian Statistical Institute is to do the survey. A team of the ASRC personnel who will visit the district on 5 November will meet the officials of the Cooch Behar Zilla Sarbik Saksarata Samity (CBZSSS). They will ask for block-wise list of the CECs and inquire about the present state of the CECs from the CBZSSS. They will visit 16 CECs to conduct a random survey. The ASRC personnel will also visit some areas in this district to find out the actual problems and reasons why a large number of CECs are not functioning well in this district.

 

There are 1,008 CECs in this district including 990 CECs and 18 Nodal CECs. But about fifty percent of the centres spread in 12 blocks and two municipal areas are not functioning well, admitted the SDO of Cooch Behar Sadar Mr Jayanta Maity who is also the officer-in-charge of the district literacy cell. It may be mentioned here that there exists is no CEC in the rest four municipalities.

 

When asked about the reasons behind the poor functioning of the CECs, Mr Maity said the Preraks (teachers) and Sahakari Preraks (assistant teachers) of the CECs and Mukhya Preraks (head teachers) of the Nodal CECs are not getting their honorariums against their service for the past seven months. There are one Prerak and one Sahakari Prerak in each of the CECs.

 

National Literacy Mission (NLM) extends the required fund to run the CECs. As this financial assistance have not been coming for the past seven months the Preraks are suffering from hardship in running the centres, Mr Maity admitted. But, many of them are still doing their job out of voluntary zeal, he said. "We appealed several times to the NLM in Delhi to send the required fund but that is yet to arrive here", the district literacy cell OC added. []