November 5, 2020.
TED NewsDesk, Jaipur: The forum of private schools in Rajasthan, inclusive of CBSE, Rajasthan Board, as well as missionary schools, launched an indefinite mass strike starting from 5th November. This move has come about as the tussle between schools and parents has resulted in severe conflict.
In a press conference on Monday, the forum said that private schools have now entered into a severe financial crisis because of which they are forced to close down. The school managements have been trying to mitigate the entire situation until now, however, due to lack of funds, the school’s haven’t been able to bear the running costs and pay salaries to their staff, it said.
The forum has thus requested Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to step in and assist the situation in these challenging times. It said that in the past seven months, teachers have been conducting online classes for students. Still, it’s now becoming impossible for management to pay salaries to the staff and meet their daily expenses. School owners have requested authorities to keep the court judgement of September 9 intact, so that parents have some clarity regarding the fees to be paid before Diwali or else the government should provide some relief funds to the schools.
The Rajasthan High Court had on 9 September, issued direction to the schools got a collection of 70% of tuition fees. However, recently, the state government had given orders that CBSE schools and Rajasthan Board should reduce tuition fees to 30-40% as per the reduced syllabi. This recent order has thus created a lot of dilemma and ambiguities, with the delay impacting over 50,000 schools and 11 lakh employees in Rajasthan.
The call for the indefinite mass strike was made by the Progressive School Association of Rajasthan, Catholic Schools Group and School Shiksha Pariwar, among others.
Source: The Times of India
