Mumbai, Jul 14 (IANS): Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar on Friday frowned at the plummeting educational standards in Maharashtra as "extremely worrying and shameful" and urged the state government to take the matter seriously.

He referred to the latest Union Education Ministry’s Performance Grading Index 2.0 (2021-2022) in which Maharashtra dropped from the second rank to the seventh position, and how the state has not taken the factor impacting academics gravely.

Pawar, 83, wrote a letter to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar besides School Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar.

“A competent education system leads to the improvement of the society. In Maharashtra many educationists like Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil recognised this principle and gave priority to building an efficient school system. However, the deterioration of the quality of school managements in the state today is a matter of shame to the quality education traditions of the state,” said Pawar.

Terming the issue of great concern from the point of view of overall educational development in the state, the NCP supremo said that the criteria for the Centre’s evaluation comprised academic performance and quality, infrastructure, changing educational processes, etc., but these were not seriously heeded by Maharashtra.

On the ‘unfortunate’ steep fall in the state’s academic quality, Pawar referred to a Yeshwantrao Chavan Centre conclave in 2022 on ‘Empowerment of Two Teachers Schools’ to make some observations and suggestions in view of changing educational policies.

There are around 38,000 Zilla Parishad school falling in the 2-teacher category, and mostly run in tiny hamlets or remote ‘bastis’ (nooks) and often there is talk to close them down as the student strength is very low, he added.

Considering all these matters, he urged the state government and especially the School Education Minister to take serious note and initiate timely measures to improve the deteriorating educational standards.

Pawar called for an urgent meeting of all concerned, preparing the required action plan and ensure that the state regains its top position in terms of imparting qualitative education.