Over 1,000 representatives from educational institutes across the state, who had gathered in the city under the banner of education federation convention, saw local NCP leaders steal the show.

Rajya Sabha MP Supriya Sule was the chief guest at the convention, which was arranged by former MLA Rambhau Moze.

While assuring the federation to take up their demand, of giving more autonomy to the institutes and cancel the policy of keeping private schools permanently unaided, with the state government, Sule took a dig at the state government for not being serious about the education scenario. Interestingly, the State School Education Minister has been from Congress for more than four years.

Sule said that the quality of education in Marathi schools was a matter of concern. Indirectly hinting at Raj Thackeray’s campaign for Marathi manoos, she said learning English is also necessary. “We all love our mother tongue. But there is no need to tell it everyday. Improvement in the quality of Marathi schools is necessary but that doesn’t mean one should hate English schools,” she said.

Urging to adopt a more academic approach, she criticised the policy of changing education secretary from time to time. “It hampers the overall educational development as every new secretary takes time to settle down and the issues are pushed backward. The secretary should serve for full five years,” she said.

Sule, however, did not forget to tell the representatives of the institutes to take a reality check of the policy of permanently unaided schools.

“The Right to Education bill is yet to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha. When it gets cleared, the issue will be automatically resolved as the bill puts the responsibility of giving education to the children between age group of 6 to 14 on the government. Until it happens, the educational institutes should prioritise their spending and accordingly make demands to the state government to relax the burden in phased manner,” she said.

Sule also called for a revamp in SSC/HSC board and expected more dynamism along the lines of CBSE and ICSE boards.