Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 10: Making mockery of the education system, 819 private schools are operating in different districts of Jammu province without formal permission and recognition of the Government during the past many years. This has established that lawlessness was allowed in the School Education Department over the years for the ulterior motives and by compromising on the future of the students.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that as per the laid down rules, each and every private school is required to obtain permission/recognition from the Directorate of School Education before enrolling and imparting education to the pupils. These permissions/recognitions are then subjected to renewal so as to ensure that all the educational institutions in private sector strictly adhere to the guidelines. But these rules are being blatantly violated by 819 educational institutions during the past many years.
“This is mainly because those at the helm of affairs in the School Education Department and Directorate of School Education, Jammu never paid any serious attention towards strictly enforcing the rules for the obvious reasons despite being aware of the fact that allowing any school without recognition/permission amounts to playing with the future of the students”, they added.
Stating that Jammu, Kathua, Rajouri and Samba are on top of list of the districts where private schools are functioning without recognition/permission, sources disclosed that in Jammu district the number of such private schools is 264 while as in Kathua and Rajouri districts the number of such schools is 122 and 88 respectively.
Similarly, 84 private schools are operating without formal permission/recognition in Samba, 59 in Udhampur, 26 in Reasi, 33 in Ramban, 60 in Poonch, 58 in Doda and 25 in Kishtwar district. “The cases/applications pertaining to these schools are pending for the period ranging between one year and five years, sources informed.
It has been noticed that applicants in many cases have been operating their schools in the anticipation of permission/recognition by merely submitting their files in the Directorate of School Education, they said. Though the pendency has been created on account of status quo order of High Court passed on March 18, 2010 whereby it had stayed the SRO-123 regulating the opening/recognition of the private schools, neither any efforts were made by the School Education Department to get the stay vacated nor any step was taken to ensure that no private school operates in the absence of pending formal recognition.
They further disclosed that even during the operation of High Court order, some private schools were given permission on the pick and choose basis. However, action against operation of huge number of schools without permission/recognition was ignored as a part of well-knit nexus. “The possibility of some unfit schools operating under the atmosphere of uncertainty cannot be ruled out”, sources added.
Now, the Director School Education, Simrandeep Singh, has taken the issue seriously and directed the Chief Education Officers to conduct fresh inspection of all these schools as per the new performa, which will enable the Directorate to take a view regarding the continuance of a school, even if provisionally.
When contacted, Director School Education confirmed that a large number of private schools have been operating without formal sanction/recognition of the Directorate. He said that the list of such schools has been posted on the website of the Directorate by issuing a formal order in this regard.
“All the files have been sent back to the Chief Education Officers concerned for conducting fresh inspections of the schools in their respective districts”, he further said, adding “the CEOs have been directed to submit their files not later than July 15, 2015 and Joint Director (Private) shall apprise about the status on fortnightly basis”, he added.
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