STUDENTS of 20,000 Non-Affiliated Schools Can Appear as Regular Candidates

            In a decision that would benefit about 2.5 lakh students enrolled with 20,000 non-affiliated or non-recognised schools across the state, the Punjab Education Department today decided to allow all such students to appear as regular candidates in the exams to be conducted by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) for the academic session 2011-12.

The decision was taken at a meeting with more than 300 representatives of private schools called by Punjab Education Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan at the PSEB headquarters here. After the implementation of the Right to Education Act, the students enrolled with the non-affiliated schools had been denied permission to appear in the Board examination. As a result, the associations of the affected schools were consistently taking up the issue with the state government. The schools had been given time till 2013 to get themselves affiliated with the government agencies concerned.

Sekhwan said all such schools that were earlier termed as academies would now be termed as associate schools and their students would have the option to sit in semester examination as regular students or through the open school system. Prior to the ban on such schools, around 2.5 lakh students used to annually appear in the matriculation and senior secondary school examination as private candidates. After the meeting, the Minister and Punjab School Education Board chairman Dr Dalbir Singh Dhillon said Punjab was the first state to have taken such an initiative for the benefit of hundreds of students.

He said different rules and regulations would be framed to associate the private academies with the Board. The regulations would be simple to the extent that they will be acceptable to all type of private institutions. He said that the minimum criteria as per qualification of teachers would be set by the Board so that the academic level of the teachers of associated schools may be brought at par with the affiliated schools. All such measures would be in tune with the spirit of the RTE Act. However, the government is silent on the issue of salaries of the teachers in such schools. As per the decision, the one-time membership fee from each of the school would be Rs 20,000 and the annual continuation fee would be Rs 5,000.

‘Step will ensure revenue to state education board’: Education Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan has said that the decision to regularise schools would have multifaceted results as it not only would end the prolonged controversy over the fate of the students and teachers working in non-affiliated schools but also provide huge revenue to the Board.