Lucknow, Jan 24 (IANS): In order to create new avenues of income for the government schools so that they become financially self-reliant, the Uttar Pradesh government is mulling a proposal to allow all secondary schools affiliated to the UP Board to offer their premises on rent for private events.
The department of secondary education in UP has prepared a policy draft and sought suggestions from the public.
Mahendra Dev, director of education, said that the proposal has been uploaded on the official website of the Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad.
The draft policy proposes that these institutions can generate funds using own resources by allowing the school premises to be used for hosting marriage functions and other celebrations during school holidays, allowing events like sports, cultural activities and exhibitions on vacant school land, allowing planting of crops on free land besides running nursery or Montessori classes as well as computer vocational training after school hours or even developing commercial gym and swimming pool on the campus.
The policy also proposes setting up a committee at the district level to consider the proposals and grant permission.
The six-member committees would be headed by the district magistrate as its head, chief development officer as its vice-president, the district inspector of schools as its member secretary, besides the finance and accounts officer and the manager and the principal of the school concerned as members.
According to the state policy guidelines, the schools would first need to get the proposal approved at the general body meeting of their management committees and then send it to the district-level committees for approval.
The approval would be granted to only those proposals that do not impact the regular teaching and learning of the school or lead to a permanent or semi-permanent construction. The schools would also have to agree to get the earning accounts duly audited by a chartered accountant and provide the same to the committee for scrutiny.
They also need to upload them on their official websites for transparency.