Page 21 - Education World July 2020

reimbursement for the year 2018- with updated technologies such as dren, experiencing severe financial
19 is Rs.280 crore, and the amount adding graphics or providing real distress, Tamil Nadu’s hitherto en-
pending for 2019-20 is Rs.550 crore. time learning experience to students vied K-12 education system is sliding
Against this, the government has requires additional expenditure of towards disaster.
released only Rs.248.79 crore for Rs.15 lakh,” says S. J o hn X avier Moreover, since the Covid-19
2018-19 and left out private schools T hang araj, senior vice president of pandemic curve of the state is show-
in Chennai which have not received Tamil Nadu Private Schools Associa- ing no signs of flattening, schools are
s.12 (1) (c) reimbursements for 2018- tion, and also chairman of the Little unlikely to reopen until September
19 and 2019-20. How can the gov- Flower group of schools, which has 30. And with the AIADMK govern-
ernment expect the RTE reimburse- an aggregate 2,000 children and 75 ment rushing into this imbroglio
ment amount would be sufficient to teachers on its muster rolls. with contradictory notifications and
meet the expenses of private unaided With private unaided and budget orders, their future looks grim.
schools of the entire state?” queries schools, which enroll 5.7 million chil- Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai)
M artin Kennedy , president of the
Tamil Nadu Private Schools Associa-
tion. “Several private school asso-
ciations will be staging a statewide
online protest on July 10 to press
demands for permitting schools to
collect fees from parents who can
afford to pay, immediate release of
s.12 (1) (c) reimbursements due for
2018-19, 2019-20 and urgent release
of RTE reimbursement for schools in
Chennai,” adds Kennedy.
The patronising attitude of the
AIADMK government towards pri-
vate independent (unaided) schools
is indicated by the allusion that the
state government had performed an
act of charity in paying the rightful
dues (payable under s.12 (2) of the
RTE Act) to them for educating poor
children in their neighbourhoods.
Moreover, the amount disbursed is a
fraction of the total amounts due to
private schools under s.12 (2).
“The RTE reimbursement
amount that the government has
provided to almost 10,000 private
schools is peanuts. My salary bill
for teachers and non-teaching staff
is Rs.19 lakh per month, while I
received a reimbursement of Rs.3
lakh. My question is, why is the
government not willing to do away
with fitness certificate charges,
license fee, property tax, professional
tax, electricity charges, insurance
for school buses during this time
of crisis? Further, the government
needs to take into consideration
how teachers are struggling to teach
students online. To prepare online
study material for three classes

JULY 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 21