According to an RTI reply, as many as 600 government schools are running without a principal for the past 6 years and that is in Delhi alone. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is blaming the central government for its negligence for this “serious issue.”
Under the information available under the Right to Information Act, the lack of principals is due to the absence of the position itself. Out of the 1,024 Delhi government schools, some 106 schools lack the position of a principal.
Out of the 918 that do have such posts, almost 600 are lying vacant. Moreover, the principal post has been vacant for over a year in most of the schools and a few have worked without one for several years. As of July 12 and out of 323 principals employed, 71 had been re-employed after superannuation.
Instead, the vice principals are taking charge of the school administration “due to principals not physically working or some schools having no post of principal.” As many as 768 vice principals are working under this arrangement.
The state of affairs is quite poor. Even though the allocation of principals is done by the Union Public Service Commission, education is known to be on the priority list for the AAP government since it had allocated 26% of its budget for developing education in Delhi.
There is no shortage of examples where schools have been without heads and principals for several years. Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya No. 2, in Madipur, has been headed by their vice principal since 2012.
The situation has spread to complete zones as well. Out of the 14 schools in Zone 28 (central Delhi), only 1 school has a principal. In Zone 19 (South West Delhi), as many as 12 schools out of 17 are administered without a principal. Other zones are also under similar administration patterns.
In the terms of future course of action, it was informed by AAP leader Atishi Marlena that the recruitment is the duty of Services and is currently being taken care by Lieutenant Governor: the central government’s representative on administrative affairs for the capital.
“Lack of principals is a serious issue. The matter is out of our hands. We, in the past two-three years, have raised this point before the LG, who holds the charge of Services,” said Marlena who also served as an advisor on education to the Delhi government.