State draws up lakshmanrekha for schools

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, August 28, 2007
Have a proper infrastructure around 30 kottah or half acre of land before thinking of opening schools. This is the diktat from the state school education department.
Earlier there was no specification and 108 schools had obtained a no-objection certificate from the government. However in most cases ICSE and CBSE boards rejected the application because of the land crunch.
According to the rulebook of the ICSE, a school located in an urban hub must have half an acre of land and one acre of land if it is situated in a rural area. CBSE is asking city schools seeking affiliation to have a minimum of one acre of land and double in rural areas.
“We were embarrassed by the developments. The decision was taken early this month. All schools wanting to seek NOC from the state government should have a minimum of 30 acres. It will be one of the main pre requisite criteria,” said R. K. Ray, joint secretary of school education department.
Even after this, if the schools having the mandatory half acre of land gets a NOC from the state it would not be able to apply for affiliation from the CBSE.
“In any case the demand for CBSE schools is less compared to ICSE schools. It is true that getting one acre of land in a city will be difficult. Bu the schools can always apply for affiliation under ICSE. Moreover, these are the rules of the boards. We are just demarcating the minimum requirement,” said Ray.
The other minimum criteria for getting NOC from the state government is a playground and an NOC from the fire department and proper infrastructure, which includes classrooms of minimum 400 square foot and three laboratories. If the school offers computer science then there has to be a computer lab too. Apart from this, the school needs to have a minimum of thirty students per section and have a well-equipped library.
“The NOC from the fire department is a very important criteria. It is also mandatory for schools to offer specified service condition and privileges to teaching and non-teaching staff. We would also ensure that the trusts or the bodies running the schools are not managed by one family,” added Ray.
mou.chakraborty@hindustantimes.com