Tripura Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath informed that in order to ensure quality education, the state government has brought in major changes in the rules for government-aided schools. The service rule for these schools adopted in 2005 has now been amended after the Education Department felt it necessary to streamline the system in the concerned schools.
Under the amended service rule, the school managing committee will constitute a committee similar to the Tripura Teachers' Recruitment Board, with permission from the Director of the School Education Department, and initiate a recruitment drive. "The recruitment of teachers must, however, fulfil the student-teacher ratio prescribed for the government-run schools," Minister Nath said, as per a report by PTI.
"I had a meeting with the authorities of government-aided schools on how to manage the schools in the best possible way. In the meeting, most of them suggested amending the old service rule for these schools," he added. Nath further stated that the new service rule will empower the school authorities to transfer teachers to nearby government-aided schools based on the situation and demand, a provision that was not mentioned in the previous rule.
Earlier, the managing committee of a particular school used to independently conduct interviews and appoint teachers as per the requirement. However, with the amended rules, "There will be an inspection of the government-aided schools once every five years," the Minister said. "If faults are identified, the concerned school will be given a two-year period to rectify them but if it fails to deliver, the particular school will be merged with a nearby government educational institute," he added.
Nath further stated, "The government is spending for these schools and therefore they must be accountable to provide quality education. That is the reason behind bringing change in the obsolete service rule," as per PTI. He also informed that the appointment of headmasters has also been simplified. "If a post-graduate teacher completes seven years in service, he or she is eligible to get promoted as the assistant headmaster. The assistant headmaster will be allowed to get a promotion as headmaster if he or she completes one year of service," Nath said.
There are 43 government-aided schools in Tripura and there are about 26,409 students studying in them, with only 1426 teachers.
