Fire rules too hot for schools
Trapping of fire officer in graft exposes loopholes
Update: 2015-07-10 08:27 GMT
Visakhapatnam: The ACB sleuths trapping GVMC fire officer M. Srihari Jagannath while accepting a bribe of Rs 35,000 for issuing a fire NOC (no objection certificate) for a private school in the city on Wednesday has once again depicted the grim picture of obtaining official clearances for a school.
The government introduced the Right to Education (RTE) Act in 2010 mandating every school to be government-recognised, which includes obtaining NOCs from various departments. This Act also made it compulsory to have a playground or to make alternative arrangements. But these norms have become a ball and chain for many private schools, particularly those running through a sustainable budget model.
During the recent raids throughout Visakhapat-nam district in June, the education officials sealed about 100 schools that were running without recognition – mainly owing to lack of NOCs. When contacted, the school managements said that their files have been pending for months with the officials.
Speaking to DC, K.S.N. Murthy, state president, Andhra Pradesh Private Schools Association said, “Getting a fire NOC has become a tough proposition as it involves permissions from 11 different departments of the GVMC. Moreover, we cannot understand the reasoning behind it as the fire safety is purely linked to the fire department.” He also questioned how the government can expect a small school in a colony to have 1,000 square yard playground and to obtain fire and traffic NOCs.
A school correspondent, on the condition of anonymity, said that the expensive process of obtaining NOCs (as they have to offer bribes to the officials) prompted his school to increase the fees. This phenomenon is making the underprivileged deprived of private education.
According to estimates, the low-budget schools have come down to 10,000 in number from 18,000 in 2013 in (residuary) Andhra Pradesh. Representatives of some private schools met HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao in June asking for a single-window system for school registrations and renewals, which has not yielded any results.
Ramesh, an education activist from Andhra University, suggested that categorisation of schools based on its economic status and student number, liberalisation of some norms and time-bound procedure or single-window system for obtaining clearances can save the affordable private schools in the state.