After pvt,now govt schools up in arms against UT for enhancing teaching hours

The education department on April 1 had communicated their decision to government schools regarding extension of the timings,following which Government Teachers Union (GTU) held a meeting and decided to register their protest.

GTU president Dr Vinod Sharma said that despite such a long protest,the DEO did no come out to meet the teachers. However,deputy DEP Chanchal Singh assured the teachers that their demands would be put before the higher authorities.

UT Cadre Educational Employees Union chief Swarn Singh Kamboj claimed that they had called the protest against the decision of the administration.

The teachers held that the decision had been taken in a dictatorial manner,without taking any prior consent of the teachers.

“Higher authorities have been trying to negotiate with private schools for the past two years to get the act implemented,but in case of government schools they failed to call a meeting,” Sharma said.

The teachers have decided to continue with the protest on Wednesday,as well. DEO Ram Kumar Sharma said,“We enhanced the timings of the teachers because it is mentioned in the RTE Act. They can protest,but we have to implement the act”.

Regarding private schools,the DEO said that all the 227 applications along with the certificates that they had received from EWS families had been sent to private schools. As per the act,schools have to admit children against vacant seats.

However,St Kabir Public School administrator Gurpreet Bakshi said that they had not received any forms so far.

Sharma confirmed that Vivek High School,Sector 38,has filed its reply to the notice issued to it for not providing information regarding the number of vacant seats under the EWS quota. “We have sent the reply to the higher authorities. Now,they have to take a decision on the issue,” he added.

On March 18 the education department had declared that over 400 seats were vacant in private schools and had asked EWS families to submit their registration forms.

On March 22,Independent Schools Association (ISA) stated that private schools did not have vacancies under the EWS quota and had asked the administration to clarify issues pertaining to the RTE Act,including whether schools had to implement 25 per cent EWS quota,as per the act or 15 per cent as per the UT’s notification.

They also sought reimbursement of bill amounting to over Rs 84.14 lakh. The bills were against the expenditure incurred by private schools on EWS students. The protesters also requested issuance of fresh notifications to apply the act in the entry-level classes.

“They failed to call a meeting with the private schools. We are not against the RTE Act,in fact,we want to implement it in totality,but we need some clarification on certain issues,” said ISA president H S Mamik.

Director Public Instructions (DPI) (schools) Upkar Singh and Education Secretary V K Singh were not available for comments as they were away in New Delhi.