Doing away with the system of applying for affiliation every year, the Punjab government on Friday announced that private schools will no longer be required to go through the cumbersome annual exercise.
"The Punjab government has decided to grant permanent affiliation to all the private schools of the state to relieve them from the cumbersome process of applying for affiliation every year," Punjab Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema said here.
With this decision of the education department, permanent affiliation has been granted to 9,487 private schools.
Cheema said earlier, all private schools in the state were granted affiliation on yearly basis and they had to apply every year to get affiliation under Right to Education (RTE) Act.
The minister appealed to managements all the private schools "not to misuse the big relief granted by the Education department and the guidelines of the RTE Act".
"If any of the schools' is found violating the guidelines, then it would be strictly proceeded against. Department officials have been instructed to keep regular checks on the schools to make sure that the RTE Act guidelines are being adhered to," Cheema said.