“Unfortunately denying admissions on their own whims and wishes, paying teachers salaries of few thousands of rupees and disengaging teachers for their own reasons without giving them a opportunity of fair trial are the unbreakable practices and precedence of private schools continuing for decades in Jammu & Kashmir.”
Pre-budget consultations is undoubtedly a landmark initiative of the newly elected Omar Abdullah led National Conference Government but the distortion of facts by Private Schools while presenting a case for reforms for private education sector at a recently held pre-budget meeting demands and deserves immediate attention and intervention of the Government. Be it the case of salaries to teachers engaged by private schools or their claim on giving admissions to the wards of the people of economically week backgrounds the private schools distorted and concealed facts for their own convenience at the pre-budget meet. While asking Government for reforming the private education sector the private schools didn’t advise the Government to reforms its own schools where wards of the people of low income groups get admissions on nominal charges but infrastructure is not developed adequately despite growing public outcry. Reforms if at all required for growth of private education sector have to undertaken by private schools themselves but not by the Government which has to take care of its own schools offering admission to people of all classes and categories on nominal charges. Unfortunately denying admissions on their own whims and wishes, paying teachers’ salaries of few thousands of rupees and disengaging them selectively for their own reasons without giving them a opportunity of fair trial are the unbreakable practices and precedence of private schools continuing for decades in Jammu & Kashmir. While the fact remains that the wards of the people of economically weaker backgrounds like laborers, salesmen, orphans, widows and shopkeepers are bluntly denied admissions for failing to qualify the admission tests held by the private schools in contravention of the standing rules of the Government on admissions in schools, most of private schools don’t pay even one fourth of the gross salaries of their counterparts of Government schools despite charging admission fee in the range Rs 50,000 to One lakh from the gullible parents . Many a times in recent years the Fee Fixation & Regulation Committee (FFRC) under the Chairmanship of Justice (Retd) Muzaffar Hussain Athar had sought explanations from the private schools for conducting tests for admissions to even basic nursery classes which is a flagrant violation of the right to education guaranteed to citizens irrespective of their regional and religious affiliations by the constitution of India. However unfortunately the incumbent Chairman of the Fee Fixation & Regulation Committee (FFRC) does not bother to even pull up private schools for holding tests for admissions to basic nursery classes in violation of the constitutional guarantees on right to education. Similarly the engagements of teachers in private schools are not governed by any recruitment policy approved or supervised by the School Education Department. Shockingly the continuation of the services of a teacher does not depend on his/her performance but on the whims and wishes of the school management and no scales are fixed for appointments of teachers at different levels in private schools anywhere in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Asking the Government to provide land to the private schools already condemned by people for poor infrastructural facilities shows the tendency of the owners of private schools to further the causes of their own commercial interests at the expense of the growth and expansion of Government schools in Jammu & Kashmir where people of economically weaker sections get admission on a simple handwritten applicatiosn without going through any entrance test the never ending precedence in private schools. The basic spirits of public accountability demand the Government does not allow private schools to flagrantly violate rules on admissions and recruitments just to drastically shut all the doors of growth and expansion for Government Schools which unfortunately are not being equipped with the basic infrastructural facilities by the School Education Department for furtherance of the basic causes of improving annual enrollments.”
In a way we can say that private schools are adopting the policy of hire and fire in case of appointments and terminations of the services of teachers which also takes away the right of job security from those engaged as teachers on nominal wages. Significantly such a recruitment policy does not attract any attention or intervention by the J&K Labour Department which is institutionally, administratively and legally bound to constitute wage boards for overseeing the recruitments in private sector particularly private schools and private hospitals. Asking the Government to provide land to the private schools already condemned by people for poor infrastructural facilities shows the tendency of the owners of private schools to further the causes of their own commercial interests at the expense of the growth and expansion of Government schools in Jammu & Kashmir where people of economically weaker sections get admission on a simple handwritten applicatiosn without going through any entrance test the never ending precedence in private schools. The basic spirits of public accountability demand the Government does not allow private schools to flagrantly violate rules on admissions and recruitments just to drastically shut all the doors of growth and expansion for Government Schools which unfortunately are not being equipped with the basic infrastructural facilities by the School Education Department for furtherance of the basic causes of improving annual enrollments.
