The Government has claimed to have given sufficient teeth to the fairly old structure of Jharkhand Education Tribunal (JET) in place through a 2005 Act. The tribunal from the next session would be capable of regulating fee structure in the privately run schools of the State.
The JET which was earlier not looking at the issue in the want of desired regulations and was concerned mostly to the schools adhering to the Right to Education Act guidelines has been re-regulated.
“We have taken steps to rein in private schools. From the next session, the JET would regulate the fee charged by private schools running in Jharkhand,” said HRD Minister Neera Yadav on Tuesday addressing a press conference on the completion of 1000 days of the incumbent Government in the office.
Often complaints about high and inordinate fee charged by privately run schools have been coming from different parts of the State. Secretary of School Education and literacy Department Aradhana Patnaik said the Government was aware about the predicament of the parents.
“The Tribunal was in place in the State but confined only to RTE guidelines. There was no provision to regulate fees of the private schools in the 2005 Act. Now, we have amended the Act and widened its scope and powers,” said the Secretary.
The Department in order to showcase its achievements focused on massive recruitment of teachers at every level. “We were up against shortage of human resources with us which was a great hurdle in providing quality education. We realised that. 18068 teachers have already been recruited and appointments of 21461 more are in the last stage. We went for a dress code for teacher in order to provide them recognition and respect in the society,” said the Minister.
She claimed that under the new regime number of schools and enrolments has gone up. Against 2881 schools till 2014-15, the number has reached 3783 while total enrolments at present has crossed 11 lakh against 8 lakh three years ago.
“We have been able to provide better resources in the schools in these three years such as bench desks, power connections, smart classrooms etc. Children are being taken on excursion trip. Gas connections are being given to schools for cooking MDM and we are going for centralised kitchen in future for serving quality food,” said Neera Yadav.
The Department equally stressed on providing vocational skill training to the students in 160 secondary and +2 schools where at least two trades are being run. The Minister added that ferry service for girls attending colleges from remote areas would commence from November 15.