Bidar: "The Government's idea of allowing schools as permanently unaided institutions is unconstitutional. We will fight against this system," Manohar Maski, BJP candidate for the election to the Council from North East Graduates' Constituency, has said.

He told presspersons in Bidar on Monday that the Constitution declared that providing free and compulsory primary education was the duty of the State. The Government should either open schools or support private schools. However, the Government's action of allowing schools to function as permanently unaided amounts to shirking the responsibility of providing education to the people.

"This has to be changed. We will soon launch a movement to replace this system with the one where the Government supports private schools with grant-in-aid," Mr. Maski said.

The Hyderabad-Karnataka Permanently Unaided School Teachers' Association was supporting him in his campaign, he claimed.

Mr. Maski opposed extending stipend to unemployed graduates. "I would prefer setting up skill schools which teach boys and girls professional skills in various trades. We have started such an experiment in teachers training. The International Academy of Creative Teaching that we established in Bangalore has produced employable graduates who are preferred by schools in the country and abroad," he said.

Mr. Maski, who is also the president of the Sindhanur Urban Cooperative Bank, said that he had introduced many employee-friendly service rules in the organisation.

"We started the practice of giving one-month paternity leave to our employees 10 years ago. The Centre started giving 15 days paternity leave seven years ago and the State adopted this rule three years ago. This shows that the bank has led by example," he said.

The bank had also introduced the concept of performance allowance to motivate its employees, he said. He stressed the need for introducing these concepts in the government.

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