The new rules are designed to avoid layoffs and ensure that new staff is properly trained. However, minorities fear that it would give outsiders ample opportunities to interfere in the management of educational facilities.

Fr Babu Joseph, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (BCCI), spoke to AsiaNews about the Church’s misgivings with regard to the initiative.

“On the one hand, there seems to be a rationale behind the government’s initiative; on the other, it might lead to more pressures and controls by unscrupulous individuals who want to undermine institutions’ autonomy in recruiting and hiring staff.” For the CBIC spokesman, “concern that schools might have excess and unqualified staff is baseless.”

In fact, “many schools in rural areas are facing the grim prospect of closure for lack of funds and staff,” he noted. “This should be seriously addressed by the State government.”

For now, Fr Babu Joseph said he would wait and see what the authorities have to say about the new rules. However, he cannot deny the Church’s uneasiness, already fuelled by new federal education legislation (see Nirmala Carvalho, “India: school reform undermines the freedom of over 10 thousand Catholic institutions,” in AsiaNews, 31 August 2009) adopted in August.

The law implementing the “Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education” includes Clause 21, which requires that State representatives sit on schools’ management boards.

On this issue, the Church understands “the good intention of the government, but cannot hide the fact that the law raises major concerns for the more than 10,000 Catholic educational facilities in the country,” Fr Babu said.

The danger that local authorities might use the law to interfere in local schools is already real in some States. In Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and even Gujarat local political leaders have frequently interfered in such matters.