LG never granted permission to send teachers to Finland, claim govt officials amid AAP vs LG Saxena row

The AAP government has alleged that the Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena has deliberately withheld the file.

New Delhi:As the Arvind Kejriwal led AAP government and the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi VK Saxena still remain at loggerheads over sending teachers to Finland for training, the government officials on Thursday claimed that though the Delhi government had sent the file to the LG for permission to send teachers to Finland, the file has not yet been approved by the LG. The file was sent on January 20, they added.

The Kejriwal government officials alleged that the Lieutenant Governor has deliberately withheld the file. As per officials, the LG had asked the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) to provide a “cost-benefit analysis in tangible terms” over the teachers' expenditure for the training, which infuriated the AAP government.

According to the education ranking of countries, Finland ranks 3rd and it is the 8th most educated country in the world. Finland's high school education ranking is 100 percent prompting the Delhi government to replicate the model in the national capital. The Global Competitiveness Study of the World Economic Forum has also ranked Finland as the best developed education in the world.

Since the AAP formed the government in Delhi, it has been sending teachers to schools in Singapore and the US for training to replicate the best practices in the countries back home in Delhi. Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia said that the file of in-principle consent was received by the LG office on October 25.

Sisodia said that the LG returned the file to the Chief Secretary on November 10, “seeking three clarifications/objections”. As per Sisodia, the SCERT Delhi clarified those points and re-submitted the file to L-G office on 14 December, but the L-G still asked for two more clarifications and returned the file to CM on 9 January.