Sir,
We, the people of J&K, have been witnessing a mushrooming rise of private schools to complement the vacuum created due utter failure of Government schools up to secondary level. This sector has been exploited by private enterprises due to easy scope of making money with almost no control by any government agency. It is actually a failure of our Government to manage education system at comparable standards that compels poor parents to knock the door of privately owned education centers and get victimized in a hope to provide good education for their children. These privately owned schools functioning both in urban and rural areas are run by the proprietors at their own terms and conditions. They exploit both parents and teachers apparently due to lack of good government schools and prevalent unemployment. It is really hard for parents to spare capitation fee at the time of admission and also a heavy monthly fee to educate their children besides other allied expenses. On a survey carried out with the help of affected parents and involved teachers of these privately owned schools in Jammu province, it is learnt that they charge around Rs.50000 per child at the time of admission and a monthly fee ranging between Rs.3100 to Rs. 5000.
As regards salary to teachers, there apparently is no standard laid down by any Government authority to avoid exploitation of trained and educated candidates available in the market due to prevalent unemployment. It is surprising to note that these teachers are asked to deposit some security money on joining and thereafter on rise of their salaries. Most of the teachers are paid between Rs. 9000 to 18000 and exceptionally higher to some specific subject teachers like mathematics, English and Science.
It is felt that Education Department of the state may lay specific rules and regulations to control functioning of private education centers and carryout strict periodical inspections involving parents of the students and teacher associations to rule out any exploitation in the larger interest of education.
We therefore urge our Governor of the State to kindly help poor parents and teachers and save crippled Education System from further deterioration.
WgCdr (Retd) Mahesh Chander Sudan
Sainik Colony, Jammu
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