Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Feb 26: It may sound incredible but is true that maximum private schools in Jammu region are presently un-recognized with their under-process status, which is a major source of corruption for the officials concerned in the School Education Department that has no fixed criteria for according recognition to these schools and duration for the same.
More than ninety percent unaided private schools in Jammu province, out of approximately 3000, are currently un-recognized by the School Education Department even as cases of their recognition, except a few, are under process.
This peculiar situation has arisen following a stay order on the controversial SRO 123, dated March 18, 2010, under Section 29 of J&K School Education Act 2002. This SRO 123 was issued for listing rule and regulations for running private schools as well as ETT Colleges and requisite minimum infrastructure and formalities for registration of the same.
As this SRO was stayed by a court order in 2012, there has been no fixed criteria or guidelines for recognition of the private institutions with the result that these schools are being subjected to vicious circle of corruption by the authorities concerned.
The situation can be gauged from the fact that no fresh recognition has been accorded by the Commissioner Secretary School Education Department to private High School or the Higher Secondary School in Jammu region since last year. More ironic is the fact that last time recognition was granted to 256 High and Higher Secondary Schools, vide Government Order number 86-Edu of 2015, dated 27-02-2015, only upto March 31, 2015, i.e. for a period of only one month even as majority of these schools had affiliation to J&K Board of School Education till 2017.
Pertinent to mention that competent authority for recognition of schools with class 9th to 12th is the Administrative Secretary School Education Department; Director School Education for classes 6th to 8th and Chief Education Officer of the concerned district for classes upto 5th.
While the Primary and Middle Schools do not require any affiliation but only recognition by the concerned CEO or Director, the High and Higher Secondary Schools need to be first affiliated with the BOSE and then apply for recognition on the basis of this affiliation.
However, there are some schools, which are neither affiliated to BOSE nor recognized by the Department but their students are appearing in the exams and results are also being declared officially for the reasons best known to the concerned authorities.
Confirmation and countersigning of annual results, notwithstanding clear instructions from the Directorate of School Education Jammu to have uniform procedure in the entire Division, is the other main source of corruption by the concerned authorities and exploitation of these private schools, a number of which are being run by the educated unemployed youth without any financial support.
Though the concept of introducing confirmation of results was to prevent exploitation of students by unrecognized schools, prevent commercialization of education and facilitate smooth transfer of students from one recognized school to another, the practice has become a quite problematic and harassment for the private schools due to severe conditions imposed by CEOs and ZEOs varying from district to district.
Even as a uniform procedure for countersigning the results was ordered last year by then Director School Education Jammu Simrandeep Singh and the same order was re-issued by the incumbent Director, results of hundreds of un-recognized schools with under-process status are still a big source of corruption.
In Jammu division, the total number of private schools is approximately three thousand with more than one thousand primary schools, 868 Middle Schools, 556 High Schools and 262 Higher Secondary Schools.
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