Teachers' training in Finland: SC agrees to hear AAP govt plea against Delhi L-G

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to examine a plea by the AAP government against the Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Delhi in connection with approval with riders to send teachers for training to Finland.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the AAP government, mentioned the matter for urgent hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud.

Singhvi submitted that L-G is deciding which teachers to send, how to send, and also when to send and further added that the matter is regarding the teachers' training programme. The bench said it will hear the matter on April 14.

In March, this year, Delhi L-G V.K. Saxena had approved the education department's proposal for a training programme of primary in-charges in Finland. However, the L-G has increased the number of primary in-charges, who were to proceed to Finland for training, from 52 to 87 so as to ensure equal representation of primary in-charges from all 29 administrative zones of the education department.

With this, total 87 primary in-charges that include three in-charges from each of the 29 administrative zones will be selected for the training programme, as against the 52 primary in-charges who were arbitrarily selected by the government.

"I would like to underline that despite, myself having, duly and rightfully enquired about impact assessment on the learning outcomes of foreign training programmes conducted in the past and the desirability of examining and identifying similarly placed training programmes in the institutes of excellence within the country, no comments have been offered by the Department/Hon'ble Minister thereto," the L-G had noted in his observation.

The development had come after the AAP government accused the L-G of 'rejecting' the proposal for the training programme in Finland even as the same was pending decision due to the AAP government's reluctance to provide details of the impact assessment and analysis of similar foreign training programmes funded by the Delhi Government in the past.

The L-G had also advised the government to adopt a fair and transparent selection process for identifying the organisers for the training programme.