Tripura Brings Changes In Rules For Government Aided Schools

AGARTALA: To guarantee quality education in government-aided schools, the Tripura government has made significant revisions to the rules governing those institutions, according to a minister. Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath told the media on Sunday that under the revised rule, the school managing committee will form a committee similar to the Tripura Teachers' Recruitment Board with approval from the director of the school education department for the hiring drive.

However, he added, the hiring of teachers must adhere to the student-teacher ratio set forth for institutions sponsored by the government. "I met with the administrators of government-aided schools to discuss how to run the schools as efficiently as possible. The majority of them at the meeting had proposed changing the previous service requirement for these schools, he said.

According to the minister, a clause not included in the previous service regulation now allows the school authority to transfer teachers to nearby government-aided schools based on demand and the scenario. The agency considered it important to streamline the system in these schools to provide quality education, he added, therefore the service rule for government-aided schools that was adopted in 2005 has been modified. In the past, the managing committee of a given school conducted interviews on its own and appointed teachers as needed.

Government-aided schools will be inspected once every five years. If problems are found, the affected school will have two years to fix them, but if it doesn't, that school will be merged with a nearby government-run school, the official said. "Since the government is paying for these schools, they are responsible for delivering high-quality instruction. The outdated service rule was changed for that reason, he claimed.

He added that the process for choosing headmasters has been made simpler. A postgraduate teacher can be promoted to assistant headmaster after serving seven years in the position. If the assistant headmaster completes a year of service, he or she will be eligible for advancement to headmaster, Nath continued. In 43 government-aided schools, a total of 26,409 pupils are enrolled, and there are 1426 teachers overall.