REVIEW OF KENDRIYA VIDYALAYAS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT, APRIL 1995

 INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Second Pay Commission had taken note of the difficulty faced by transferable Central Government servants in the education of their children. During the course of their service, such Government servants move from one place in the country to the other and from one language region to the other. The medium of instruction in different language regions is different and the schools being affiliated to the State Board the syllabi are also different. Considering this, the Pay Commission recommended that Government of India should set up some schools which could ensure uninterrupted education in different stations of the children of' Central Government employees in the same medium of instruction and in relation to the same syllabi. The Government of' India, therefore, approved establishment of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan by taking over 20 regimental schools in 1963-64. Subsequently, as the utility of these schools was increasingly appreciated, there was a demand for opening such schools in more and more locations and accordingly, new Kendriya Vidyalayas started being set up every year. Presently, there are 818 Kendriya Vidyalayas spread all over the country besides two schools outside the country, one in Moscow, and the other in Kathmandu.

1.2 In view of the fact that Kendriya Vidyalayas were set up for the welfare of the transferable Central Government servants, management of these Vidyalayas was seen as a welfare activity and, therefore, since the beginning the Kendriya Vidyalayas have been funded out of Non-Plan grants given by the Government to the Sangathan through the Government budget every year. In 1994-95, the grant to the Kendriya

Vidyalaya Sangathan is Rs.185 crores. Thus, the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan is a very large Organisation, perhaps the largest chain of schools anywhere in the world outside the Government sector.

1.3 The Kendriya Vidyalayas are all from classes I to XII and they follow a common medium of instruction all over the country by teaching Social Sciences in the Hindi medium and Mathematics and Science in the English medium. The Government approves setting up of new Kendriya Vidyalayas for a 5 year period at a time and presently the Government decision is for opening 20 new Kendriya Vidyalayas every year. The Vidyalayas are in the Defence sector or Civil sector or Project sector (Public Sector Undertakings) or in Institutions of Higher Learning. The distribution of Kendriya Vidyalayas among these sectors is presently as below:

             Defence Sector                                    355
             Civil Sector                                      299
             Project Sector                                    154
             Institutions of Higher Learning                   10
        
                                          
             Total                                             818

The number of schools and the student population have grown as shown in the accompanying charts.

1.4 In the Project Sector all non-recurring and recurring expenditure is provided by the sponsoring Organisation whereas in Kendriya Vidyalayas under Institutions of Higher Learning, only non-recurring expenditure is provided by the Institution. Therefore, such schools are

not a financial burden on the KVS and accordingly schools in these sectors can be opened by the Sangathan over and above the 20 new schools approved by the Government.

1.5 The admission policy for the Kendriya Vidyalayas has been broadly laid down by the Government in view of its status as the funding agency. The admission policy for the Defence and Civil Sectors is identical and basically it gives priority to transferable Central Government servants by giving first preference determined by the number of transfers of the parent in the last seven years. In Kendriya Vidyalayas in the Project sector and the Institutions of higher learning, the overriding priority is given to the children of the employees of institutions where the Vidyalayas are located.

The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act and the Minister of Human Resource Development is ex-officio Chairman of the Sangathan. The KVS functions through its General Body called the Sangathan. its Executive Committee called the Board and through three Standing Committees i.e. the Finance Committee, the Academic Committee and the Works Committee. The Chairman of the KVS is the Chairman of the Sangathan and of the Board whereas the Vice-Chairman is the Chairman of the three Standing Committees. An Officer in the Ministry of HRD, Department of Education, specified by the Govt. of India for this purpose (presently the Additional Secretary in the Department of Education) is the ex- officio Vice-Chairman of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan.

At the executive level, the administrative structure of the KVS is headed by the Commissioner, assisted by two Joint Commissioners and five

Deputy Commissioners as in the organisational chart of the KVS at next page. The Head Office has 23 Group 'A' officers. Since the schools are spread all over the country, the KVS has set up 18 Regional Offices for effective control and management and each office is headed by an Assistant Commissioner who is assisted by three Education Officers. Overall, the KVS caters to 6.80 lakh students in 818 schools through an employee strength of 42,950 out of which 33, 460 are teachers.

1.6 Over the years, the Kendriya Vidyalayas have acquired a very good reputation for themselves as they contribute very strongly to national integration apart from providing a very valuable educational facility to transferable persons in the Government sector. However, the very large size of the KVS seems to be detracting somewhat from responsiveness to academic and administrative needs. At the same time, the National Policy of Education, 1986 as updated in 1992 envisages a resurgence in the educational process and content. Subsequent to the policy, there have been two very important reports, one, the Yashpal Committee on curriculum load on students and the other, the KP Singh Deo Committee on Physical Education and Sports which have recommended a major reorientation of such programmes and academic management and KVS as the leader among the school sector organisations is expected by the Government to take the lead and show the way for desired academic reorientation to the other school systems in the country. These factors require the functioning of the KVS to be reviewed to determine where and how the policies and programmes should be reoriented for the KVS so that the Kendriya Vidyalayas can lead the way for achieving excellence both academically and management-wise. The Government had appointed a Review Committee in 1988 whose Report unfortunately did not get implemented in a focussed manner. However, that Report is already six years old and its literal implementation now would not serve

the needs which are now substantially different in view of the changed perspective in regard to financial and academic matters in the context of the revised National Policy on Education in 1992, the Yashpal Committee and the Singh Deo Committee. Therefore, the Government constituted the present Review Committee on 29.4.1994 under the Chairpersonship of Deputy Minister of Education with the following membership:

        
              Km. Selja                                        Chairperson
             Deputy Minister
             (Education & Culture)
             MHRD
        
              Shri Y.N. Chaturvedi                                 Member
             Additional Secretary
             Deptt. of Education
             MHRD
        
              Dr. S.Y. Quraishi                                    Member
             Joint Secretary
             Youth Affairs and Sports
             MHRD
        
              Smt. Lizzie Jacob                                    Member
             Commissioner
             Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan
        
             Letter of authorization is given in Annexure-I.

1.7 Review Committee has tried to proceed in a very systematic and thorough manner for making a review of the KVS. The Review Committee has in all held 12 meetings. The committee designed two Questionnaires and through that ascertained the views of the Principals,

Chairmen of the Vidyalaya Management Committees, the sponsoring organisations such as Defence, Para-military establishments, Railways, Public Sector Undertakings etc. While addressing the Questionnaire and interacting with the teachers and parents, care was taken to include very large and very small schools, schools in metropolitan cities and in smaller towns and outstanding schools and weak schools. A copy each of the Questionnaires is at Annexures II & III. The Committee and/or its members visited 24 Kendriya Vidyalayas for seeing the functioning of the Vidyalayas and interacting with the teachers and parents. It interacted in groups with parents, Chairmen of the Vidyalaya Management Committees, teachers, Principals, officers and other staff of KVS, user organisations, Associations of KVS teachers, educationists including former commissioners of KVS. Their details are available at Annexure - IV. The Committee has, of course, also drawn upon the factual information from the KVS. This has constituted a very large input for the Committee and by collating and analysing these various inputs, the Committee has arrived at its recommendations which it hopes can lead to a significant improvement in the functioning of the Kendriya Vidyalayas.

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