Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 6: Minister for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Taj Mohi-ud-Din today said that Government has stopped affiliation of 47 private schools and it has no intention to relax norms under SRO- 123.
He was replying to a discussion moved by Ajay Kumar Sadhotra regarding the problems faced by private schools in view of SRO-123, in the Legislative Council today. The Minister said for the betterment of our future generation and to provide better education facilities to them, norms laid down under SSA and RMSA coupled with SRO-123 ought to be followed.
Mr Taj said the prescribed space as demanded under SRO-123, viz infrastructure and dimension of rooms i.e. indoor games room (with an area of 150 SQ Mts) one principal room (with 100 SQ Mts area) one staff room (100 Sq Mts Area) are not available in most of the cases. Moreover, instructions have been issued to the concerned school managements who applied for further permission, reorganization and upgradation to provide the entire requisite infrastructure and other facilities as per prescribed norms.
He further said that the norms laid down under SRO- 123 are according to the guidelines of SSA and RMSA which facilitate opening of primary schools, upgradation of primary into middle schools and upgradation of middle schools into high schools. He said academic inspection are regularly conducted by teams constituted by the J&K Board of School Education, the members of which comprise academicians of repute nominated by Directorates of Education Kashmir and Jammu.
As per condition laid down under SRO-123 the J&K BOSE has stopped the affiliation of 39 private institutions of Kashmir division and 8 private institutions of Jammu division which were found deficient and could not fulfill the norms,he added
Shiekh Ghulam Rasool while taking part in the discussion said that Government should extend finance/aid to those private schools for infrastructure development that have shown excellent performance over the years especially in rural areas.
Jehangir Hussain Mir said that Government should relax rules for good schools that have contributed a lot in the education sector over the years. They should be allowed to run till they are able to build the required infrastructure as per norms, he said.
B R Kundal said that the Government should come up with a notification regarding those schools that do not fulfill the norms laid down under the SRO 123 so that parents would be well informed in this regard.
Nurboo Gialchan said that education should not be allowed to run like business and those schools that do not fulfill the norms should not be encouraged.
Earlier while moving the discussion Ajay Kumar Sadhotra highlighted the contribution of private schools in the education sector of the State and demanded that norms under SRO-123 should be relaxed to encourage private schools. He said private schools should be given sufficient time to build the requisite infrastructure before enforcing provisions under SRO-123.