Page 16 - EducationWorld March 2023

Education News

governance of children below ten agements of Primary and
years and can help states identify Secondary Schools in Karna-
areas that need to be addressed,” say taka (KAMS) led by edupre-
the authors of the report. neur D. Shashi Kumar,
Commenting on the FLN Report and RUPSA, an association
2022, Vineet Nayar, former CEO of budget private schools,
of HCL Technologies and founder of lashed out at the government
the non-profit Sampark Foundation, stating that the issuance of
which is working with 84,000 prima- the list will create another
ry schools in six states, says: “NIPUN opportunity to extort bribes.
Bharat and FLN mission are vision/ “How and why have these
intention statements of the Central schools suddenly become il-
government, which could transform legal? This is nothing but an
India if implemented with passion, opportunity created by edu-
design thinking and innovation. The Nagesh (centre): streamlined process cation ministry officials to
FLN Report 2022 should be carefully extract bribes from school
studied by educationists in the pri- greenfield CBSE and CISCE schools, managements to make unauthorised
vate and government sectors to chalk making timely RTE Act, 2009 fees into authorised,” says D. Shashi Ku-
out an implementation plan. Change reimbursements, and other routine mar, general secretary, KAMS.
makers have to cooperate to ensure administrative functions. owever Shashi Kumar welcomes
FLN mission execution if India is to On March 3, state education minis- Hthe ministry’s March 3 announce-
reap its demographic dividend.” ter B.C. Nagesh held a press confer- ment of switching to an online system
Autar Nehru (Delhi) ence during which he announced sev- for recognition/renewal services.
eral initiatives to ease and streamline “We welcome the switch to the entire
KARNATAKA the voluminous paperwork required online application, recognition, in-
Online system for promotion of greenfield schools, spection process. Previously, bribes
would be demanded at every stage
issuance of NOCs to new CBSE/CISCE
smokescreen schools, and renewal of recognition li- of the application process at the time
cences.
of physical submission. I hope it will
help reduce corruption in the educa-
Nagesh said the education depart-
ith state legislative Assem- ment has introduced a new online tion ministry,” he says.
bly elections scheduled for process for all school application/re- Shashi Kumar’s hopes may be
WMay-June, the ruling BJP newal services. Under this process, the doused if not dashed. According to
government is pulling out all the stops timeline for school promoters to get Dr. Dhirendra Mishra, founder-
to mend its damaged reputation vis-a- an NOC for starting new CBSE/CISCE director of Life Educare, a Bengaluru-
vis education. The BJP government’s schools has been reduced from 90 to based K-12 education consultancy,
record in education — which unlike 15 days with all “relevant documents” the application process has merely
most north Indian states is an impor- uploaded online. Moreover hence- become “paperless not simplified”.
tant electoral issue in Karnataka — has forth, the district Deputy Director of “Several states such as Gujarat,
drawn widespread adverse comment. Public Instruction is the final author- Madhya Pradesh and UP have al-
For instance, in the year past, the ity to sanction approvals, unlike the ready gone online with their schools
government has been focused on earlier system where all applications recognition/NOC application pro-
politicising education rather than up- were initiated at the office of the Block cess. Yet despite being the new digital
grading academic standards. It has Education Officer and travelled up the technologies hub of India, Karnataka
stoked the hijab (headscarf) contro- bureaucratic chain. is a latecomer in moving to the online
versy, allegedly rewritten school text- Also on February 15, the govern- system. Almost the same set of docu-
books from the hindutva perspective ment released a list of 1,316 private ments have to be submitted except
and worsened institutionalised cor- “unauthorised” schools, for violations that the process has gone online. The
ruption in the education ministry. such as “having additional sections ministry should reduce the number
For the past several months, sev- without permission” and operating as of documents for submission, leaving
eral private schools associations have CBSE/CISCE-affiliated schools when no room for bureaucratic discretion,”
openly accused education ministry of- the permission was granted for imple- says Mishra.
ficials of extorting massive bribes for menting the state board syllabus. To all intents and purposes, the
renewal of school recognition licences, Private schools in the state under government’s new online system
issuing no-objection certificates to the banner of the Associated Man- seems to be a smokescreen, behind

18 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2023