Coimbatore: More than a week after the district elementary education officials issued notices to unauthorised playschools in the city, representatives of Tamil Nadu Playschools Association on Wednesday met the district elementary education officer seeking a week’s time to submit forms to get the schools regularised.
“The representatives of the playschools have promised to send the proposals to get the schools legalised in a week. According to them, around 40 schools in the city are ready to get regularised,” said an official attached to the elementary education department.
The official said the department would look into their proposals and the schools would be given authorisation if they were found to comply with the Tamil Nadu revised draft code of regulations.
Representatives of the playschools said they had urged the officials to relax certain regulations. “The rules stipulate that the classrooms should have two entrances. But many playschools are run out of houses, with a homely atmosphere. As such, we cannot change the infrastructure. So, we have asked for relaxations of such rules,” said N Calvary Thiyagarajan, state general secretary of the association.
He added that the schools would get regularised soon.
While elementary education officials had identified only 80 playschools in the city, representatives of playschool associations said there were more such schools.
“There are around 400 playschools in the city and none of them are authorised. But the department officials say they have found only 80 playschools so far,” said Maya Devi Shankar, state president of All Private Schools Welfare Association.
Responding to this, an elementary education department official said they had been tracking down such play schools and issuing them closure order.
“But most of them relocate to other places with a different name,” the official said and added that the department has decided to track down all such unauthorised playschools within 10 days and shut them down.
According to the elementary education department, of the 80 identified schools only eight have proper authorisation. Officials had sent notices to the remaining 72 schools. Of them, only 15 schools replied, forcing the officials to consider sending another show cause notice to the rest 57 schools. Following this, the representatives of the Tamil Nadu Play Schools Association met the officials.
“If schools applied for authorisation are found to follow the regulations, they will be issued licences within May 10 so that they can start their academic process,” Maya Devi said.