Chennai: Effecting a major administrative revamp in school education, the state government has empowered the chief educational officers (CEOs) to administer and regulate all type of schools including primary, nursery and middle schools, high and higher secondary schools in a district.

It further delegated disciplinary and administrative powers to field level officers to ensure effective monitoring of schools and quality of education.





The government has decided to do away with posts such as inspector of matriculation schools and district elementary education officers which are equivalent to district education officers.

“Hence, all these posts shall be retained as district educational officer and territorial jurisdiction shall be divided in such a manner that every district educational officer gets a similar number of schools. He shall be entrusted with powers to administer all kinds of schools in an educational district,” school education secretary Pradeep Yadav said in the order.

The assistant elementary educational officers are renamed as block educational officers as they would be inspecting all kinds of schools including elementary schools in their jurisdiction. They supervise panchayat union primary and middle schools, self-financed schools within their territorial jurisdiction.

“They will also be empowered to visit any school within their territorial jurisdiction,” the order said.

There are totally 37,211 government schools, 8,403 government aided schools and 12,419 self-finance schools in the state which were governed by different parallel streams of administration at the field level. The order aims to give the field level officers more clarity in terms of jurisdiction and powers for effective monitoring.