SHILLONG: Opening of new schools in Meghalaya is going to be more capital-intensive as they must fulfill some desirable but stiff conditions being set by the state government for becoming eligible for recognition and grant-in-aid.
The Meghalaya Cabinet on Thursday approved a new set of prerequisites to streamline the school education including having playground, parking space and financial capability to meet overhead expenses for three years.
Talking to reporters, Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui made it clear that new school ventures from now onwards will have to fulfill the prescribed norms and criteria to obtain permanent affiliation from the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBoSE).
Rymbui said that many of schools in the state do not have proper playground not to speak of a proper parking space due to which, city witnesses huge traffic snarl during the school hours.
“We are making it mandatory that the minimum requirement of land for setting up of schools in urban areas is 2.5 acres and it will be 3.5 acres in the rural areas,” the education minister said.
As per the new rule, anyone planning to set up schools should also have contingency funds of three months for payment of salaries to the teachers, adding the appointment of teachers should be as per NCTE norms besides the teacher welfare fund.
He further said that the building and location of the school will have to meet safety criteria as per Disaster Management Rules and they must get an NOC from the concerned deputy commissioners and superintendent of police.
“Until you meet the criteria, you will not be recognised. The new rule will have a prospective effect. We will come up with proper notification of this new rule in due course of time,” the minister said.
Rymbui further added that the schools would be under probation for two years and if they perform satisfactorily during this period, they will be granted permanent affiliation by MBoSE.
The minister noted with regret that so far there are no prescribed norms for providing grant-in-aid to schools.
Cabinet on Thursday tried to rectify this anomaly by giving its seal of approval to the laid-down norms for allotting of grant-in-aid to schools which will apply uniformly to all new schools.
This single step is expected to remove, what Rymbui called, “huge discrepancies” in the system.
Citing an example, Rymbui said that there are some schools which was set up 20 or 30 years back and are still performing are not getting any financial support whereas some schools set up in recent years, which do not meet the requirements, are receiving grant-in-aid.
