The Hindu : New Delhi News : No profiteering in education: Sibal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

New Delhi

New Delhi

No profiteering in education: Sibal

Staff Reporter

‘State laws to prevail where RTE is silent’

RTE silent on salaries to be paid to teachers
Minister will meet Chief Ministers of States

NEW DELHI: Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal clarified here on Saturday that profiteering and commercialisation in education would not be allowed.

The clarification came after he was quoted as saying that the fees of private schools could not be regulated and that each school had the right to fix the salaries of its teachers.

Speaking about the issue of school fees, Mr. Sibal said the laws of the Delhi Government would be applicable as the Right to Education Act was silent in this regard.

On the issue of teachers’ salaries, too, the RTE Act is silent.

The Delhi Government laws state that for a school to be registered and recognised, teachers must be paid the equivalent of government school salaries.

In order to be recognised under the RTE Act, schools would also have to register themselves.

This implied that small schools which provided quality education to students but could not afford to pay their teachers the stipulated salary in order to be recognised might run the risk of being shut down once the RTE Act was implemented.

According to Mr. Sibal, this was not desirable. In areas where the RTE Act was silent, the State Government laws would prevail, he added.

Admitting that there was a conflict in this regard, the Union Minister said he would meet the Chief Ministers of other States as consultations were required over the implementation of RTE. He also plans to meet Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Monday.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi