BANGALORE: Members of the Unaided Schools and Colleges’ Management Federation (USCMF) were half-naked, as a form of protest, at Freedom Park on Monday demanding release of grants to schools, which were started between June 1987 and 1994-95. “The government in 2007 announced grants to all primary and secondary schools and pre-university (PU) colleges falling under the above time span. Some schools and colleges even reaped the benefits. But, in 2009, the government decided to scrutinise individual files, which was later abruptly stopped,” said Jalamangala Nagaraj, President of USCMF. The scrutiny for 699 schools and 116 PU colleges was postponed by the officials, who cited vague reasons. Following this, grants to these schools were stopped. “Former CM B S Yeddyurappa and other officials from the Higher Education ministry announced `65 crore towards this grant in 2010 budget. Grants was distributed to 307 schools and 37 PU colleges but postponed distributing grants for the remaining schools and colleges, pending scrutiny,” he said. He added that another `125 crore was allotted by the Sadananda Gowda Government towards the grants, but yet again officials were misleading the schools and colleges whose files were not scrutinised. “We waited till our patience ran out. This time, we will not move from Freedom Park until our demands are met,” said Nagaraj. The schools and colleges, which opened between June 1987 to 1994-95 were Kannada-medium institutions based in rural areas. Hence, the paucity of funds was affecting students from the poor section of society.
Comments
0 comment