In an effort to ensure financial and administrative autonomy of minority schools in the city, around 25 such schools on Wednesday announced the launch of an association, The Forum of Minority Schools' (TFMS). The forum will also act as a common platform, facilitating exchange of human resources, expertise, faculties and infrastructure among minority institutions. V K Williams, president, TFMS, said that the forum would try to introduce CBSE curriculum in the Muslim minority schools. The forum was formally inaugurated by Valson Thampu, principal, St Stephen's College. Vineet Joshi, acting chairman of CBSE was also present on the occasion. Terming it a timely initiative, Thampu said, 'All stakeholders of minority education should get together to make the journey effective. It's a timely move as the attitude of the government and bureaucracy towards minority education has been lackadaisical so far.'
Williams, the principal Mount Carmal School, Anand Niketan, said that although the problems faced by the public schools and minority institutions are similar, minority institutions couldn't be clubbed with the public schools. On a separate forum, he said, 'There are primarily three reasons. The Indian Constitution under Article 30 gives the minority community the autonomy to establish and administer minority institutions, a norm which has been violated. Second, we are becoming synonymous with public schools in a negative way and so we want to set the record straight that we are minority schools with missionary commitments and finally, in the name of public schools, certain steps are taken against our constitutional autonomy like attempt to regulate our fees, attempt to put government representatives in our management, usurping our rights to take disciplinary actions against erring employees, levying on us commercial rates of electricity, water and property tax, among others.'
