“How can LG repeatedly suppress it?”: Delhi government resubmits Finnish teacher training proposal to Raj Niwas
It was sent again by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government a proposal to send state school teachers to Finland for training — an issue that dominated the recently concluded session of the Delhi Legislative Assembly — to the Raj Niwas again on Friday, asking how the LG can stifle the initiative by “repeatedly raising flimsy objections”.
Earlier, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had alleged that Lieutenant Governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena had “stalled” the proposal twice by raising objections to the file despite the approval of the AAP government.
In a letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal early on Friday, the LG said he was happy that the CM and AAP MLAs raised the issue of education and teacher training, after which he took up the matter with the Delhi government.
In a recent presentation, Sisodia stated, “The government has considered the proposals from all aspects, including cost-benefit analysis, and considers it necessary to improve the quality of education. If the CM and the education minister have decided to send their teachers abroad, how can the LG stifle it by repeatedly raising weak objections.”
Sisodia further stated, “It is against democracy and the constitution for an unelected person to decide and change almost every decision of a democratically elected government. The elite class of our country suffers from a feudal mindset; they want to send their children abroad but strongly oppose and seek cost-benefit analysis even as teachers of poor children are sent abroad. “
The LG’s remarks, Sisodia said, were “extremely unfortunate”, adding that such a “regressive feudal mindset” should have no place in 21st century India. According to the Supreme Court, the Deputy Prime Minister added, the LG has no power to order a cost-benefit analysis of any decision of the Council of Ministers.
He also sought to remind the LG that the SC orders were not only binding on every citizen of India but also became law. The powers of the ‘administrator’ of Delhi are not unlimited and are defined in the Constitution and various ordinances, Sisodia added.
The LG cannot reject any proposal, he can only point it to the President, Sisodia said, asking the LG to “kindly inform” whether he would do so or not.
He stated: “After all analysis and consideration of all aspects, the Delhi government has decided to send its teachers to Finland for training. Hon’ble LG may kindly inform whether he wants to invoke Article 239AA(4) of the Constitution. If he chooses to do so, he must follow the procedure set out in Rule 49 of the TBR.
As part of the communication to Kejriwal, Saxena, on the other hand, claimed that regardless of whether the 5-day trip to Finland would serve the “substantive education” of the visitors or if it would serve as an “event to be played by the media”, he did not initially reject the proposal.
Saxena said, “I raised a few queries regarding the impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis of such visits for the last few years and asked the department if training could be provided more cost-effectively through our own premier institutes like the IIMs,” said LG Saxena.
He then noted that he had recently approved proposals to send 55 state school principals and vice-principals to Cambridge in two batches of 10 days each with specific training objectives.
Meeting on teacher safety
A day after a physical education teacher of a Delhi government school was stabbed in west Delhi on the school premises, allegedly by a Class XII student after he was scolded for not wearing proper uniform, Sisodia chaired a meeting focusing on “safety and respect for teachers in Delhi.”
“The safety and respect of teachers in Delhi is the responsibility of the government. A review meeting was held today with officials of the Ministry of Education to ensure that immediately after all the suggestions made by principals and teachers, a policy should be made to prevent incidents like attacks on teachers,” Sisodia tweeted. Friday.