Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta on Monday demanded that the Aam Aadmi Party government set up a high-level monitoring committee to facilitate school admission process which begins early January.
An estimated seven lakh children are scheduled to start their school education starting January 2 and to ensure that they do not face any inconvenience, the government should set up a committee comprising education officers, parents and representatives of parent-teachers associations, Mr. Gupta said.
DDA land
“The difficulty of the parents is that the schools which got land from DDA on concessional basis and those which did not have adopted two different yardsticks for admission. The former have devised ways to discourage admission of children on quota so that they could give back-door admission to children of parents with a lot of money,” Mr. Gupta alleged.
The BJP leader said that a number of parents have complained that government schools lack basic facilities such as drinking water, electricity, working toilets, even as classrooms lay in dilapidated condition.
Encourage schooling
He demanded that the government must set its own house in order so as to encourage parents to send their children to its schools.
The education sector recently brought the AAP government face to face with its most bitter critics – guest teachers – recently. The government has decided to invite fresh applications for “on merit” recruitment of guest teachers from the next academic session.
Protest by teachers
The development follows a massive protest by a group of guest teachers against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at a function in north Delhi's Chhatrasal Stadium, after which Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also heads education portfolio, questioned the need for such criticism from the guest teachers “despite getting benefits” from the government.
After the incident, the AAP government has changed its stand on appointment of guest teachers as it had earlier allowed the already existing academic professionals to continue in their position.
