GUWAHATI, Dec 5 � Additional Chief Secretary Jitesh Khosla has been asked by the State Government to go into the SEBA affairs and to submit a report within a month.
The stalemate created by the tussle between the Chairman and the Secretary of the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA) has worried educationists here.
Speaking to this newspaper, former SEBA chairman Prof Gajendranath Talukdar described the development as unfortunate. �Schools will desert the SEBA if this situation continues.�
A former SEBA Secretary Prof Dilip Kakati also holds a similar view and called for urgent steps to resolve the issues shortly.
For, he said, the 2013 High School Leaving Certificate Examination is fast approaching. The unsavoury situation in the SEBA may have adverse impacts on the examinees, who will be sitting for the first time in their life in such a big examination. Kakati was the SEBA Secretary between November, 1992 and May 31, 1995.
It needs mention here that the tussle between the SEBA Chairman and Secretary has its origin in the debate on who should call the shots in the SEBA. While the 1993 SEBA Regulation has made the Secretary the executive head of the Board, the Section 19 (1) of the 1961 Secondary Education Act has provided that the Chairman �shall have all powers necessary� to implement the provision of the Act.
The Section 20 of the Act which deals with the powers and duties of the Secretary, has said, �The Secretary shall be subject to the control of the Chairman� and he �Shall be the principal administrative officer.�
But in 1993, SEBA Board had approved a regulation which empowered the Secretary to operate as the chief executive and reduced the Chairman to an ornamental position.
It is alleged that there is no conclusive proof as to whether the Government has approved the regulation or published it in the official gazette as has been laid down in clause 24 of the Secondary Education Act.
However, the June 22, 2012 report of the Review-cum-Reforms Committee constituted by the State Government on the SEBA on March 23, 2012, which had on it the SEBA Secretary as the secretary, has stated in its page 24 that the SEBA regulation existed for the past 50 years and its non-approval by the Government is a �mere technicality.�
This has allegedly added to the ongoing impasse in the SEBA.
