Administrators of minority self-financing Tamil medium schools have appealed to the Chief Minister to issue an order to provide government pay scales for teachers and other employees in the institutions in its fold that were started in rural parts and up-graded since 1991.
These minority schools have been struggling to address educational needs of villages through creation of basic amenities in fulfilment of the norms of school education department without receiving any government aid.
The minority-run schools were meted out an injustice in 1998 by denying their rights to receive government aid towards salaries to teachers and other staff.
The denial of minority rights was anti-constitutional, the A.M. Musthafa Kamal, president, Federation of Administrators of Minority Self-Financing Tamil Medium Schools, complained in a petition submitted to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
Mr. Musthafa further said that the previous regime had made an announcement at the start of last year that 6,400 additional posts will be created for the minority Tamil-medium schools that were started and upgraded from 1991 to 1998 along with an assurance that the requirements of schools started thereafter will be considered in 2011-12. The minorities feel cheated by the “empty promise.”
Government funding was vital for minority institutions since the managements were unable to pay adequate salaries to the teachers.
The predicament of the schools got further aggravated by the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2010.
Levying fee from the students is the only way for the minority school managements to pay the teachers, he explained.
In the petition, the federation also expressed the agony of the students of the schools in their fold due to their ineligibility to avail themselves of the benefit of government schemes such as distribution of free lap tops, and fee concessions for the needy.
The federation, Mr. Musthafa said, was entirely banking on the ‘historic announcement” made during December 2011 by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa during a felicitation ceremony that the requirements of the minorities will be fulfilled in right earnest.
The federation, he said, was hopeful that a decision on bringing the minority Tamil-medium schools in the ambit of government-aid will be announced within this month.
