Schools
From the British times, Bihar has had a system of district schools (called Zila schools), located at the headquarters of the older districts of Bihar. In addition, there were private and semi aided schools which were run and administered by local village communities. Several of them were known for their high quality education.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the state government took over management of most privately run schools. This adversely affected school education in the state since the state government was ill equipped to manage the schools through its bureaucrats who were trained for law and order duties. Though the state accorded them government recognition, the standard started to fall. The state did not take over the schools run by the Christian missionaries and these schools provided a fillip to quality education in Bihar.
As in other states, the central government runs a number of Kendriya Vidyalayas (Central Schools) and Jawahar Navodaya Schools for rural students. Jawahar Navodaya Schools started by the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi have been successful in providing quality education to the weaker sections of the society.
The number of private schools, including school-chains and Missionary Schools run by Christian Missionaries as well as Madrasas, or schools run by Muslim clerics, has increased in the post liberalisation era.
Most of the schools in Bihar are affiliated with the Bihar School Examination Board, while the Kendriya Vidyalay and a few other elite schools including the Christian Missionary Schools are affiliated to the ICSE and CBSE boards. A recent survey by National University of Educational Planning & Administration (NUEPA) has determined that only 21% of all primary school teachers in Bihar have completed the matriculation; or 10-th standard.
In spite of the poor condition of schools in Bihar, students from there are performing satisfactorily with respect to other economically better off states of India thanks to the law of affirmative action which provides for reservations in jobs and education for people of backward classes.
Read more about this topic: Education In Bihar
Famous quotes containing the word schools:
“In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
“If the women of the United States, with their free schools and all their enlarged liberties, are not superior to women brought up under monarchical forms of government, then there is no good in liberty.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)