M A I N   N E W S

Death knell rings for aided schools
Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 22
The death knell has started ringing for nearly 430 government-aided recognised private schools in urban areas having about three lakh students as the Punjab Finance Department has directed the Education Department to phase out 95 per cent grant-in-aid to these schools and also to de-link the pay and allowances of their staff from that of their counterparts in government schools.

Already, the functioning of government schools is in shambles, and phasing out grant to these aided schools, which are the backbone of the low-priced quality education in urban areas, will be a telling blow to the education system in the state.

Sources said that the Finance Department had sent a note in this connection to the Education Secretary (Schools) with the remarks that in view of the poor financial position of the state, the administrative department was advised to amend the rules to de-link the pay and allowances of employees of aided schools from that of government employees. At present, the staff of these schools gets salary and allowances on a par with their counterparts in government schools. Obviously, the rules are to be amended to do away with that parity.

Sources said the note further says that the administrative department was also advised to review the grant-in-aid scheme with a view to phasing it out in due course. And even the grant-in-aid during the phasing out period should be given after deducting the income to the school concerned from various fees, funds, and properties, if any, owned by the institution. There was also a suggestion to revise the tuition fees in these schools.

The Education Department has told the DPI (Schools) to prepare proposals to phase out the grant-in-aid in the light of the direction given by the Finance Department. The managements of these schools had been directed to furnish details of income from various sources, including tuition fee, donations and properties, if any, held by them in the name of the schools run by them. Such details have been sought to re-work out the grant-in-aid during the phasing out period. Sources said that the government wanted to decrease grant by 10 per cent every year in such schools in urban areas. There is no reference of such schools in the rural areas in the note.

In all, there are 484 aided schools having about 3.5 lakh students in Punjab. Of these 46 are schools for girls. Concentration of these schools is mostly in urban areas as the number of such schools in rural areas is just a little over 50. The total number of sanctioned posts in these schools is 9,685 and of these 900 are vacant as the government has not given permission to the school managements concerned to fill these posts.

The government gives about Rs 110 crore (as per 2005-06 Budget) as grant-in-aid to these schools. About Rs 6 crore is collected by these schools through donations. The grant-in-aid is given only to pay the salary to the staff. Other expenditure such as on buildings, infrastructure, laboratories, library, drinking water and electricity and other needs is made by the management of these schools. As the government has not allowed these schools to fill vacant posts and has also not increased the teaching staff strength in proportion to the increased number of students, their managements have recruited 3,000 teachers on nominal salary to cope with the situation.

The Punjab State Aided School Teachers and Other Employees Union has decided to launch an agitation against the decision of the state government. Mr M. L. Chopra, Adviser, Mr Gurcharan Singh Chahal, President and Mr Ramesh Kumar Sharma, General Secretary of the union, said that teachers supported by management committees of these schools would stage a dharna on July 25 here at Matka Chowk.