Shillong (Meghalaya),April 26 : With schools being shut due to the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus, the State Education Department has asked schools not to charge school fees from students of marginalized families.
This was discussed during a meeting of the department with stakeholders of various school managing committees and governing bodies held on Saturday here.
Education Principal Secretary Donald Phillip Wahlang told reporters that fees for the period during that lockdown, that is, March, April and May will be exempted for those affected by the lockdown.
“If a parent is a daily labourer and has not been able to go to work then he won’t have to pay fees,” he said.
Wahlang said that the school managing committees has the statistics and also data on the parent’s income in each and every school.
“So the managing committee will have to take a call and the department will issue a directive in due course of time,” he said.
He informed that the agenda of the meeting was on opening of schools, on school fees and hostel fees and evaluation of papers which have already started.
On the issue of declaring results of the Class X Examination, Wahlang informed that last year the results were declared on May 26, and this year too it will not be very far from that date.
He also informed that the department will have to conduct the four papers of Class XII also which are left and that will be done in the month of May.
“…provided there is a small caveat that is the lockdown is not extended,” he said.
It may be mentioned that around 3000 students are waiting to write the Mathematics paper while around 70 students were yet to sit for the Statistic, Physical Education and Western Music papers.
However, Wahlang informed that the decisions taken with the stakeholders of various schools were internal and the final call especially on reopening of schools will have to be taken after more consultations with the health department and also at the higher level.
The meeting was attended by the Vice-Chancellor of NEHU, Prof. S.K.Srivastava, Father Richard M. Majaw, Catholic Mission, Swami Anuragananda, Principal, Ram Krishna Mission Ashram, Sohra, Banteilang Rumnong, representative of the Seng Khasi, representative of the Presbyterian Church and Noor Nongrum, representative Muslim Community.
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