Withdraw order on closure of Adarsh School: Parents

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service 

Faridkot, October 31

Parents of around 600 students and teaching staff of Government Adarsh School at Malla village, Faridkot, on Thursday locked horns with the School Education Department after the latter ordered closure of the school, ended services of all teachers and shifted students to other government schools in the area. They assembled in the school and threatened to start an agitation, if the orders were not withdrawn.

Parents are annoyed as the orders came in the mid of academic session, parents of all students at the English medium, CBSE-pattern school. As all other government schools in the area were Punjabi medium and affiliated with the Punjab School Education Board, changing the study pattern and medium for these students in the mid of an academic session was a cruel joke, said parents.

On October 23, the Director General of School Education (DGSE) had ordered the closure of the school. While there were orders to shift all students to other government schools in the area, the services of all teaching and non-teaching staff in the school were also ended. However, following a strong protest by parents, the District Education Officer (DEO), on October 29, deputed six government schools teachers at Malla as a temporary arrangement to continue classes. Parents alleged that the motive of the move was to not allow earlier posted teachers to work in the school.

The temporarily-posted government schoolteachers faced a strong protest from parents and the former staff. Many of the ‘temporary’ schoolteachers also expressed their helplessness in teaching students in under the CBSE pattern. The ‘sacked’ teaching staff of the school alleged that the School Education Department had violated High Court orders, according to which the Court had granted status-quo over their services.

The department claimed that the teachers were employee of Saheed Udham Singh Society, which was running the school under PPP mode. There were a total of seven schools under the Society and the department terminated its agreement with the Society on August 13 this year. “We have asked the teachers to report back to the Society as they were employees of the Society,” said a senior functionary in the department.

After termination of the agreement with the Society, the department had invited applications from any Society or Trust in the state to run six of these schools, other than Malla school. Punjab has 24 Adarsh Schools running under PPP mode. The operational cost of an Adarsh School with upto 2,000 students with a cap of Rs 1852 per student is shared on 70:30 basis between the Board and the private partner. No fee is charged from students.