Shillong, Apr 25: The Meghalaya government on Saturday sought the opinion of stakeholders on exemption of school fees for three months in view of the national lockdown to contain the spread of Coronavirus.
The issue was discussed by senior government officials of the Education Department during a preliminary discussion with stakeholders of various schools on strategies to be adopted to reopen schools and its implications post lockdown.
The meeting was attended by Vice- Chancellor of NEHU, Prof. S.K.Srivastava, Father Richard M. Majaw of the Catholic Mission, Swami Anuragananda, the Principal of Ram Krishna Mission Ashram Sohra, Banteilang Rumnong, Representative Seng Khasi, Representative of the Presbyterian Church and Noor Nongrum, Representative of the Muslim Community.
Principal Secretary (Education), Donald P Wahlang said, parents who are daily labourers and have not been able to go to work then they won’t have to pay fees.
The school managing committees have the statistics and datas on the parents’ income in each and every school and they will take a call, and the department will issue a directive in due course of time.
“It was more or less agreed that school fees should be exempted for the month of March, April and May for those severely impacted by the lockdown,” he said.
On re-opening of educational institutions, Wahlang informed that a meeting between the Education Department and Health and Family Welfare department is scheduled to be held next week to discuss on the matter.
On declaration of results of the Class X examination, he said that last year, the results were declared on May 26, and this year too, it will not be very far from that date.
Wahlang said the examination for the remaining four papers of Class XII, which was postponed due to the lockdown, is likely to be held in May provided that the lockdown is not extended.
“If it is extended, we have to re-visit again, but if not, then we already have our plans. However nothing is final as of now, because we are not so sure about the lockdown,” he said.
Around 3000 students are waiting to write the Mathematics paper while around 70 students were yet to sit for the Statistics, Physical Education, and Western Music papers.
