Applicants for unaided English-medium schools forcibly entered into the office of additional chief secretary J S Saharia, asking why their submissions were refused
English may be a funny language, but the business of English-medium schools is certainly not. Security personnel at Mantralaya had a tough time yesterday afternoon controlling an irate group of around 50 people, who stormed into the chamber of additional chief secretary (school education) JS Saharia, demanding reasons for rejection of their applications – filed for 2010-11 and 2011-12 – to run unaided English-medium schools across the state.
The cluster comprised office bearers of many educational institutions “We wanted to know why the state government failed to accord its approval when 3,115 applications were short-listed after the scrutiny of over 8,000 submissions received from various locations. The authorities sanctioned just two schools on September 25, 2012 and have been sitting silently over the remaining proposals,” said a visibly irritated office bearer of an institute.
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The two schools approved by the government are Shree Sakharam Maharaj English School, Loni (dist Washim), and Mukul Madhav Vidyalaya, Ratnagiri. All the applicants were asked to tender their proposals with details of the basic requirements to start a school. “Many of us have purchased two acres of land, constructed school buildings, and have spent lakhs of rupees on creating basic facilities, as specified by the government,” said the office bearer.
While the additional chief secretary told the mob that the matter now rested with the chief minister, sources from the school education department said a parley with Prithviraj Chavan was a remote possibility as the file was returned by his office with remarks that the date of the meeting will be conveyed later. The issue of new unaided schools assumes importance as a number of politicians-turned-education barons too were interested to open such institutes owing to the high demand for English-medium schools in urban, semi-urban and even rural areas.
8,000
Total no of applications received by the state for setting up of unaided English-medium schools
3,115
Of these submissions were short-listedu00a0
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