RASA-Punjab demands the admission of the student of other schools strictly on ‘school-leaving certificate’
Private school owners express resentment over leak of students’ data
Ferozepur, June 3, 2020: Resentment prevails among the private school owners over the leak of students’ data and allowing the government schools to admit any student without obtaining the ‘school-leaving certificate’.
Jasminder Singh Sandhu, President and Ravinder Kumar Sharma, General Secretary, Association of Heads of Recognized and Affiliated Schools – RASA-Punjab addressing the media persons at Press Club, Ferozepur today said, the students have started getting unnecessary calls after making public the students’ data on e-portal of private schools by the Punjab Government Education Department.
Honouring the decision of the Court to accept 70 percent fee from the students and disbursing equal percentage of salary to the staff, they said, till such time the remaining 30 percent fee is decided, the private schools should be given a grace time for making payment various other accounts in the government account.
The school owners pointed out that government is using the pressure tactics as earlier the school has to pay Rs.5,000 for getting from the PWD whereas now the charges have now been increased to Rs.50,000.
The Education Department is having a corpus fund of around Rs.350 crores which is collected at the time of recognition and affiliation of schools. The pandemic COVID-19 has been brought under Disaster Management and it is the right time to use these funds for the schools which can be taken back with the ease of the situation, they added.
It is discrimination with the private schools by allowing the government schools to fetch the students of private schools by putting the data – Aadhar card number – on e-Portal, access to which is only available with the government schools. The governments schools being the competitor of private schools should not have been allowed this facility. With these arrangements at the level of the Education Department, in the coming times, the school strength with the private schools will considerably come down. With the admitting of the students on the basis of Aadhar Card in government schools, the data of that particular student will be deleted from the account of private schools.
Taking no chance as to how long will be the impact of the coronavirus, the private schools who too are worried about the studies of the students, have started online classes, by putting the entire staff to work from home and denying them of their full wages, in the absence of collection full fee from the students, has to be reconsidered by the government over its decision of 70 percent fee and wages to staff.
Around 5,500 schools under RASA-Punjab giving a warning to the government, President and Secretary said, not to allow the admission of students in any school including the government schools, without getting the ‘school-leaving certificate’ failing we will be left with no alternative except to proceed legally.