Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh bats for quality education at primary level

SHIMLA: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said monthly or quarterly tests are required to evaluate the performance of students, especially at primary level, besides monitoring the performance of teachers.

Presiding over a conference on quality education here, he said tests help teachers in evaluating students which in turn helps them in paying more attention to weak students.

"We are stressing more on strengthening the primary education system which is the base for developing students both academically and individually but the grading system has weakened the basic education set up as the child cannot perform well in higher classes," he said.

Singh said the government has made it mandatory to teach Hindi, Maths and English from class I so that they perform better while pursuing higher education.

The Chief Minister said the state government was mulling to install bio-metric machines in schools to bring discipline and, in the first phase, 136 schools at sub-tehsil level will have bio-metric machines by July end to keep an eye on punctuality and check absenteeism.

The government was also considering opening of specialised colleges on particular subjects such as Fine Arts, Music, Science etc to give better career choices to students, he said.

Singh added the Directorate of Inspection would be set up in which well qualified teachers will evaluate the performance of other teachers. They would be empowered to take suitable action and conduct surprise inspection in schools.