Bhubaneswar: The two-day state level School Management Committeee (SMC) Federation meeting at CYSD, Bhubaneswar, organised by the Orissa RTE Forum concluded Friday.
As per law an SMC has to be constituted in all schools as per the RTE Act 2009.
The Government of Orissa claims that all schools have an SMC as per the Act, but in reality there are thousands of schools which don’t have SMC. After the act came into force, it was expected that schools will get adequate infrastructure.
But the quality of education is declining in the state resulting in privatisation of education and introduction of different board systems. As per rule, the state has to provide free, universal education to all.
It is quite evident that SMCs instead of promoting the same is now manipulating rules and not prioritizing education as a primary responsibility.
Keeping this in mind and to improve quality the SMCs collectively decided to form a state-level federation.
The primary objective would be to work as a pressure group to enforce the rights of children to free, compulsory education. In future the SMC Federation will ensure implementation of RTE Act and control over privatisation.
The programme was inaugurated by Padampur MLA Pradip Kumar Purohit.
PNN