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The Human Resource Development Minister, Shri Arjun Singh, has directed his Ministry to fix responsibility with regard to sanctioning of 95 Kendriya Vidyalayas in the recent past. It has now been found that these schools were sanctioned in violation of the norms for setting up of these institutions without sanction either by the Government or the executive committee of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan which had not met for three years. Shri Singh has also ordered that the matter may be taken to the Cabinet for an appropriate decision for the continuation of most of these schools and the allocation of resources for them. He has directed that the careers of the students admitted in these irregular schools are not jeopardized in any way.
The normal procedure for setting up schools would be through a Plan allocation, budgetary provisions and the approval of the appropriate authorities in the Government. KVs are opened on the basis of the location of Central Government employees in a particular area. The norm is the availability of 200 school going children from this category. The schools can also be opened for Government of India undertakings, which are totally by them. In addition, the schools require 15 acres of land and rent free temporary accommodation for school and staff quarters for at least 50% employees till the KVs is in a position to construct its own buildings.
All these norms were waived and 95 schools were set up without any rationale, just on the basis of orders directly issuing from the then HRD Minister’s office, bypassing the Ministry and in violation of procedures. This resulted in several schools being opened without proper facilities, with an inadequate number of teachers and students, which was much below the norm. In some cases, there is an average of 10-15 students in each class.
A consequence has been the deterioration in the quality of academic work in the existing schools because their teaching resources were depleted by the arbitrary deployment of their staff to the new schools. The KVs system has also been put to acute financial stress because of this expansion without provision for additional financial resources.
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