Chandigarh: Former education minister and senior vice president Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema urged here today urged the Punjab chief minister not to resort to centralized purchase of uniform for students because it would result in inordinate delays, mismatch of uniform of different schools, faulty distribution of uniforms and unnecessary burden on general category students.
Stating this former education minister said that the centralized tendering by the education department for uniforms would defeat the very purpose of providing uniforms. At present, different schools have different type and clolour uniform. If theg0vernmetn provides one type of uniform for all, then it would render their old uniforms useless.
Therefore, Dr Cheema sought to abandon the proposed new centralized system and revert to the old time tested system of let the school management arrange for the students and release funds immediately. This would ensure early timely and smooth supply without any hiccups.
Dr. Cheema urged the government to have more faith in school managements as the decentralized system is certainly ten times more efficient. “Let us have no trust deficit in our teachers and management if we want the best results.
The practice of free uniforms for students was conceived under the old SSA scheme under which the uniforms were purchased by a committee comprising head of the school and school management. Now, the old scheme has become integral part of the Samagra Shiksha programme.
Under the scheme, 12 lakh students are to be provided uniforms@ Rs 600 per students and thus the total cost would be in vicinity of Rs.72 crore. All girls and all students belonging to schedule caste (SC) and other backward classes (OBC) studying up to class VIII are eligible for free uniforms. However, all general category students are expected to purchase the uniforms from local market.
Since there is high probability that centralized procured uniforms and those purchased from local markets may not match in colour, tone and shade. Thus, the students of different categories would have different uniforms defeating the very propose of prescribing uniforms in schools.
Moreover, centralized purchase can’t ensure the same standards every year as the different companies may qualify for procurement. Since the students get one set each year, they can use the last years set also and thus would have more than one set. Moreover, the younger siblings too can use the uniform
Dr. Cheema also reminded the chief minister that the distribution of uniform has already been delayed this year as the academic session is almost over. Also, the local procurement would provide work to thousands of small times tailors, Dr. Cheema added.