State tries to sugar coat school act

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, July 17
The state government is trying to take the middle path. To make the proposed act for monitoring private schools more acceptable to institutions, the state has come up with a revised formula. The act will force schools to be accountable but will give institutions the freedom to choose the board it wants to report to.
Schools can now choose between CBSE, ICSE or West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. Institutions can also choose a trust or a corporate body. If the school is under a church then it can be accountable to it also. However the body to which the school chooses to be accountable will have to give a declaration to the government. The government is also ensuring that all institutions are affiliated to boards.
The act is being framed to ensure job security for teachers and non-teachers. It will also regulate the fee paid by students and salary structure of teachers. The original aim of the act was to force institutions to give detailed information on their management, recruitment rules of teachers, service rules and security to the government.
The act will ensure that a teacher or a non-teacher can complain to the concerned trust against the management of their institution. This trust will also be responsible to the government, the public and the court.
This act according to school education minister Partha De will be a unique one has been sent to the Centre for approval. “We are not in a hurry and are giving ample scope to all parties to air their opinion. The government is not interested to interfere in administrative maters. But schools will have to be accountable to a body which in turn will be accountable to society and ensure that rules are followed,” said De.
The teachers however are not that excited with the proposed law. They fear that if the schools are allowed to choose the body to which it wants to be accountable then framing the act will be baseless. “All the private schools have an eye on profit and will choose an agency which they are comfortable with. It is obvious that such an agency will not be neutral and the teachers will be in bigger trouble,” said Leena Chatterjee, general secretary of Forum for Teaching and Non Teaching Staff of Private Schools of West Bengal.
The forum had earlier proposed the school education minister to from a tribunal consisting of a high court judge and representatives from the schools, teachers and non-teaching employees to which all institutions are accountable. “If there is a law, then there should be a singular body to which everyone has to be accountable. How can an individual person of a trust be given that authority and to whom will these bodies be accountable? Such an arrangement will not be acceptable to us,” Chatterjee added.
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