Maharashtra: Education minister-led panel’s report in two months on policy for night institutes

PUNE: Night schools in the state will soon get a new policy to take care of their issues like lack of subject teachers, inadequate staffing and confusing duty rules that plague the system now.
A 10-member committee headed by school education minister Varsha Gaikwad is expected to submit its report in two months.
MLC Kapil Patil and a member of the committee said, “These students work throughout the day and come to school at night to study for three hours.They must get the best teachers. The GR on May 17, 2017 became an issue for night schools as it disallowed teachers from day schools to work part-time here. This led to a decline in the night schools and many were on the verge of closing down. I have been associated with the night school movement since 1984. Once the committee meets, we will discuss all the issues and do the best for the students.”
Ashok Belsare, from Shikshak Bharati association of teachers and also an advisor to the Night School Headmasters’ Association, said that the GR affected night schools because they were not getting enough teachers per subject and because they were not getting adequate teacshers.
There are 211 night schools of which 150 are in Mumbai, 13 in Pune and about two each in the remaining districts.
“The number of teaching hours are less in night schools as compared to day schools.. We have the same syllabus. Teachers need to be highly experienced to teach night school students. We need subject teachers because secondary education is tougher. We also need the committee to look at providing a meal to the students like the midday meal so that more students can join,” he added.