A plea filed by AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) government against the Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Delhi, involving a foreign teachers' training programme will be heard by the Supreme Court on April 14. It was mentioned in the court today, April 6, by Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Representing the AAP government, Singhvi urged for an urgent hearing of the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud. AAP has alleged that Delhi LG VK Saxena was "interfering" with the government's work. It was submitted in the apex court that Saxena was deciding the details of the programme, like which teachers to send for the programme, how to send them and when to send them, as per reports by IANS and PTI.
The training programme
The Delhi Education Department recently sent a proposal to the LG for approval, regarding a training programme for primary teachers in Finland. The LG asked the AAP government to provide details of the impact assessment and analysis of similar foreign training programmes funded by the Delhi Government in the past.
The LG had also advised the government to adopt a fair and transparent selection process for identifying the organisers for the training programme. However, Saxena later noted in his in-principle approval for the programme that the AAP government had not responded with the details.
"I would like to underline that despite, myself having, duly and rightfully enquired about impact assessment on the learning outcomes of foreign training programmes conducted in the past and the desirability of examining and identifying similarly placed training programmes in the institutes of excellence within the country, no comments have been offered by the Department/Hon'ble Minister thereto," the LG wrote.
And with this, arose a war of words between the LG and the government. The LG increased the number of primary teachers, who were to proceed to Finland for training. According to a source from the LG's office, the number of teachers was increased from 52 to 87 so as to ensure equal representation of primary in-charges from all 29 administrative zones of the education department, mentions the IANS report.
"With this, a total of 87 primary in-charges that include three in-charges from each of the 29 administrative zones will be selected for the training programme, as against the 52 primary in-charges who were arbitrarily selected by the government," the official said, as per PTI.
