In the light of the recommendation of the Kothari Commission, Bihar started the 10+2+3 system of education commencing from 1977. Before that, the Board examinations used to take place after class XI. According to the changed system, the Board examinations started being held after class X. After passing the Board examination after X, the students were required to do two years of further studies, known as the +2 or intermediate level, before starting under-graduate education. The under-graduate teaching in university was also changed, and its period was extended from 2 years to 3 years. Between 1977 and 1983, the 10+2+3 system of education started operating at all the relevant levels of education in Bihar, but classes for +2 still remained a part of the university. Only for the purpose of conducting examinations, the Bihar Intermediate Education Board was established in 1981. However, the teaching at the intermediate level i.e. +2 could not become a part of the school education.
The school syllabus in Bihar was changed in 1958, 1968 and 1977 and according to the new system, in all the schools, the students of class X were required to study, apart from languages, science, mathematics and social science. The earlier choice of science or art available in class VIII itself, was done away with in 1977.
Table 1.7
Percentage expenditure of total budget (Revenue & Accounts) on Education (1968-69)
Sl. No. State Expenditure on Education
Total State Budget
Percentage expenditure of total budget on education
1 Kerala 4766 14469 32.9 2 Madhya Pradesh 5117 17995 28.4 3 Tamil nadu 6335 24754 25.6 4 Punjab 2510 11296 22.2 5 Rajasthan 3089 14187 21.8 6 Maysore 3926 18276 21.5 7 W. Bengal 4565 21548 21.2 8 Haryana 1377 6635 20.8 9 Assam 1730 9168 20.6 10 Gujarat 3107 15153 20.5 11 Maharastra 6563 32317 20.3 12 Andhra Pradesh 3817 20467 18.6 13 Orissa 2195 12219 18.0 14 Bihar 2724 15534 17.5
15 Jammu & Kashmir 849 5456 15.6
16 Nagaland 221 1903 11.6
17 Uttar Pradesh 6227 35487 17.5
Total 59276 276864 21.40
Source : Bihar mein Siksha ki Pragati 1947-78, Govt. of Bihar, Department of Education, Patna, Bihar Textbook Publishing Corporation Limited, Patna, Table 6.18, p. 118
The decade of the 1970s witnessed two major changes in the system of school education in Bihar. Firstly, in 1976 all the primary and middle schools were taken over by the State Government. Though the formal taking over took place in 1976, it became effective retrospectively from 1st January 1971. Accordingly, the control and management of all primary and middle schools in Bihar was transferred to the Department of Education of the Government. The participation of the community and society in the management and control of these schools came to an end. Teachers were overnight transformed into government servants from their earlier status of social servants. This decision might have benefited the teachers but the end of social control adversely affected the management of the schools. The local community became increasingly dependent on the State instead of taking their own initiatives for running the schools. This turned out to be a principal factor responsible for a sharp deterioration in the quality of education in these schools.
The second major development was the decision of the government to take over all the secondary schools with effect from 2-10-1980. The government also became solely responsible for opening and running schools at this level. As a result, apart from a few girls’ schools which came up under Project Kanya Vidyalayas, no new secondary school was built in the whole of the 1990s. On the one hand, with the increase in population and under the influence of other factors, the demand for education was increasing; but on the other hand, the government was apathetic to establishing new educational institutions. This led to a further widening of the gap between demand for and supply of schools.
The adoption of the National Policy on Education in 1986 did not result in any significant change in the educational scene in Bihar. All that happened was the establishment of a few Navodaya Vidayalayas. Some Kendriya Vidayalayas had come into existence in Bihar even before the National Education Policy was adopted.
Before 1990, the number of schools in Bihar affiliated to the Central Board of School Education (CBSE) was negligible. But between 1991 and 2005, several such schools were established. This was partly because of the failure of the State Government to build schools in the government sector and partly because of the dearth of trained teachers in government schools. The Government of Bihar also could not apply several of the other norms and standards prescribed at the national level for elementary and secondary education. Consequently, the middle class in Bihar turned towards private schools as the only alternative. The popularity of schools affiliated to CBSE and of the English medium of education, therefore, increased rapidly. As a result, the government schools slipped far behind in the race and only the children of those families which could not afford the alternative of the private schools, were condemned to government schools. Though the number of students taking exams. under the Bihar School Education Board kept on increasing year after year, the number of those regularly present in the schools continued to decline at all levels. Thus, during this period, the educational scene in Bihar was characterized by high fee charging expensive private schools on the one hand and high salary earning teachers not much interested in teaching, in the government schools, on the other.
According to the National Education Policy of 1986, every State was expected to establish a District Institute for Educational Training (DIET) in each district with the assistance of the Central Government. Bihar had earlier established Primary Teachers’ Education Centres (PTEC), which had arrangements for providing pre-service training to primary teachers. After
the Central Government’s directive for establishing DIETs, the Government of Bihar upgraded some of the PTECs and took it that they had become equivalent to DIETs. In this situation in Bihar, DIETs could never become what they were meant to be and what they actually became in other States. In 1994, the Government of Bihar abolished pre-service training as a requirement for becoming a teacher. This drove the last nail on the coffin of teachers’ training institutions in Bihar. If it was not necessary to have training in order to become a teacher, then why should anyone be bothered about getting trained? And if that was so, then what was the justification for keeping the teachers’ training institutions running? During the last 12 years, only a few of the faculty members and other employees out of the sanctioned strength in these institutions have been in place. Throughout this period, these institutions numbering 60 in total, have not conducted any pre-service training. The only exception was the provision of one year on-service training to some 40,000 primary teachers recruited by the Public Service Commission of Bihar during the years 1994 and 1999.
Three rounds of appointment of primary teachers took place between 1994 and 2000. In 1994, the Bihar Public Service Commission conducted exams to select 25,000 teachers. In 1998, 1,000 trained teachers were appointed through the same process and in 1999, 14,000 primary teachers were appointed by this process. After that, in 2001 and 2003, Shiksha Mitras were appointed at the levels of Panchayats.
In 1991, Bihar Education Project Council was established and it started its activities, under UNICEF financing, in the field of primary education, parallel with those of the Education Department of the Government of Bihar. The Board’s work started in the Sitamari district under the Sitamari Yojana and then it extended to seven more districts in the united Bihar. In present Bihar, three districts are covered by the activities under the Bihar Education Project (BEP).
The UNICEF programme, in the second stage, was converted into the World Bank financed District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) starting from 1997. The Bihar Education Project Board was entrusted to carry out this programme. Under both these programmes, separate infrastructure of teachers and other workers was created at the district and State levels. Thus, two parallel institutional arrangements, one under the Education Department of the Government of Bihar and the other under Bihar Education Project Council were active in transforming the shape of primary education in Bihar. As the work progressed, these two parallel arrangements came to be characterised by contention and conflict instead of dialogue and co-operation. Consequently, in the third stage when the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan started in 2000-2001, the Department of Education entrusted the work relating to SSA to the District Education Superintendent-cum-District Programme Co-ordinator, whereas under DPEP these posts were held by two different individuals.
These programmes are based on the partnership of the community in providing primary education. In other words, an attempt is now being made to return to the community the rights that the government had taken away in the 1970s and early 1980s. The establishment of the Vidayalaya Shiksha Samitis is a move in this direction. Though pre-service training facilities are lying in decay and hence no longer available in the State, under all the three stages of the Bihar Education Project, arrangements have been made to provide on-service training. The Bihar Education Project, however, has not played any role in the rehabilitation or the effective functioning of the teachers training institutions in the State. The work relating to the
development of syllabus and courses, preparation of books and teachers’ training which was supposed to be done by the SCERT, was in part taken over under the BEP.
During the first five years of the 21st century, nothing significant happened in Bihar except the appointment of Panchayat Shiksha Mitras at the salary of Rs.1,500 per month. However, the year 2006 ushered in a whole series of measures which have the potentiality of bringing about fundamental changes in the structure and character of the school education system in Bihar. The significance of the work of the Bihar Common School System Commission, the first Commission on school education set up by the Government of Bihar in the post-Independence period, lies in its being situated in this context.