Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has clarified that a non-minority school will not acquire minority status merely because its management is transferred to a minority educational institution.In a government resolution issued on Thursday, the school education department said the institution’s original character would remain unchanged even after the transfer, and it would not become eligible for protections available to minority institutions.The order seeks to settle what the government describes as confusion at the field level. A 2012 policy permits the management of schools to be transferred, by mutual consent, between minority and non-minority educational bodies. This had raised questions among officials and institutions over whether a school could inherit the minority status of the trust taking it over.The government has now drawn a clear distinction between the identity of the managing trust and that of the school. It said, “minority status requires an institution to have been both established and administered by a religious or linguistic minority. A trust that later assumes management may satisfy the administration test, but cannot retrospectively claim to have established the school.”The clarification comes months after Maharashtra witnessed a controversy over the grant of minority status to 75 educational institutions in a short span between Jan 28 and Feb 2. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis subsequently stayed the certificates and ordered an inquiry.The episode triggered wider scrutiny of how minority status was being granted and used. School education minister of state Pankaj Bhoyar announced a probe into allegations that some institutions had sought the tag mainly to secure exemptions from the Right to Education Act’s requirement of reserving 25% entry-level seats for children from disadvantaged groups.
