GUWAHATI, Feb 27 - In view of glaring lapses in the �Provincialisation of Services of Employees of Educational Institutions Under Assam Venture Educational Institutions (Provincialisation of Service) Act, 2011�, the State Government has called for enacting a new legislation.
In a White Paper placed in the table of Assam Legislative Assembly today, the government said that the Provincialisation Act 2011 is not in line with the RTE Act 2009 or the National Council for Teacher Education regulations and the SEBA Act.
�The reservation policy of the State is not incorporated in the Act. In the venture schools community recruits the teachers and they do not follow reservation norms. Thereby most of the teachers are recruited from general category and as a result when vacancy arises due to retirement all the vacancies are filled up from the reserved category to fill up the backlog and this continues for 25-30 years. Thereby applicants of general category are deprived,� said the White Paper about the demerits of the venture schools and the Provincialisation Act.
It said that there is �discrimination with some of the teachers due to fixation of maximum number of teachers in the school/colleges in the Act. Secondly, due to provincialisation of services of teachers on seniority basis, in some schools services of teachers for core subjects, was not provincialised.�
It said that the teacher recruitment in venture schools and colleges is not competition based and is opaque in nature and therefore quality of education is suffering.
�The Act ignored neighbourhood norms for provincialisation of the schools. Due to mushroom and unplanned growth of venture schools and provincialisation of these schools the financial burden on State exchequer has increased substantially,� said the White Paper.
It said that while the venture schools were established by the local people, so barring landholding the other infrastructure facilities like buildings were not adequate.
�After provincialisation of these schools the responsibilities for looking after these school buildings have shifted to the State Government leading to extra burden on the State exchequer. For such situation it has been difficult to escape from the public criticism showing poor infrastructure of the schools,� said the White Paper.
It said that services of 21,957 employees under elementary education, 16,721 employees under secondary education and 2,980 employees under higher education have been provincialised under the Provincialisation Act 2011.
�However, there is a report that the enrolment of these new provincialised institutions is decreasing after provincialisation. There are many newly provincialised schools where the enrolment is less than the prescribed rate and these schools require merger/amalgamation with other schools,� it said.
As per the White Paper, there are 6,608 institutions which are eligible as per the Act but have not yet been provincialised.
It said that given the complexities of provincialisation, a new legislation should be enacted considering different aspects.