Shillong, Jan 12: The A·chik State Peoples’ Front (ASPF) has expressed strong opposition against the recent communication issued by the state Education Department on January 2 regarding the responsibilities of the Directorate of Educational Research and Training (DERT) and the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBOSE).
The Meghalaya government issued a clarification on that day that stated that DERT will be the sole authority to notify the curriculum, syllabus and textbooks for all classes from pre-primary to Class 12 across the state.
DERT will thus notify the curriculum, syllabus and textbooks in line with the approved state curriculum framework. It will also take into account any prescriptions made by MBOSE under Section 12(i) of the Meghalaya Board of School Education Act 1973.
DERT must obtain prior approval from the Education Department before issuing any such notification, while MBOSE has been directed to communicate its prescriptions under the Act in writing to DERT. MBOSE will continue to prepare, publish and select textbooks and supplementary textbooks. However, this must be done strictly in accordance with the curriculum, syllabus and textbooks notified by DERT, as required under the Act.
The ASPF stated today that, though “clothed in the language of clarification,” the government’s statement was “nothing short of an administrative overreach”, which, it added, “will sound the death knell of the statutory autonomy of MBOSE”.
According to the ASPF the MBOSE Act 1973 invests the board with exclusive power over the textbooks, curriculum, etc and this cannot be changed by executive fiat but only by amendments to the law.
The government also cannot use the excuse that the Right to Education Act 2009 makes it necessary for DERT to be given the responsibilities that it spoke of in its clarification, the ASPF added. “The RTE Act must be read harmoniously, not destructively, with the MBOSE Act 1973.”
