CHENNAI: The Madras High Court On Tuesday directed the School Education Department to notify by July 22 the guidelines for regulating play schools in the State.
Holding that the draft guidelines submitted by the department requires improvement, the First Bench of Chief Justice S K Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam passed the order on a PIL moved by advocate R Balasubramaniam, who sought closure of over 750 play-schools in the State.
The petitioner alleged that according to the provisions of Tamil Nadu Recognised Private Schools (Regulation) Act, schools seeking provisional affiliation with the State Board must have prior recognition of the State government. But in the present case, no such affiliation or approval was obtained by the over 750 schools.
After perusing the draft guidelines submitted by government pleader Krishna Kumar, the Bench questioned why a play-school and pre-KG school, which handle children aged just about three years of age, required playgrounds.
Noting that what such schools required was a play area, the Bench pointed out that regular schools themselves had no proper playgrounds.
The Bench directed the Department of School Education to invite opinion from the public and from the private play schools on the draft guidelines if any by June 22. “The department after due consideration of the objections/ opinion shall publish the final guidelines by July 22,” the Bench said.
The matter was further posted to July 30 for compliance.
