Taking a strong stand against private schools for including expensive books from private publishers in their curriculum, the state education department of Uttarakhand has issued notices to 22 schools in the state. With regard to this, the Director General of Education Banshidhar Tiwari said the No Objection Certificates (NOCs) of these defaulting schools would be cancelled.
On Friday, April 7, the education department conducted simultaneous raids in 256 private schools across the state following complaints that National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) books were replaced with expensive books. Additionally, it was found during the probe that government orders regarding the implementation of NCERT books were being violated in 21 schools in Nainital and one in Haridwar, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
Speaking to TNIE, State Director General of Education Banshidhar Tiwari said, "Arbitrary fees by private school managers and pressure on parents to buy expensive books prescribed by the school will not be tolerated. Raids in schools will continue, compromise with the future of school children of the state will not be tolerated at any cost."
Raids and probes
During these statewide raids on private schools, a case was also reported in Haridwar in which digital books of all subjects were being made available to students for Rs 3,400. The highest number of cases of expensive books in the curriculum by private publishers have been reported in schools in Haridwar and Nainital districts.
Giving more details on this, Tiwari said, "Raids have been conducted in 49 schools in Nainital, 10 in Rudraprayag, nine in Bageshwar, 21 in Dehradun, 77 in Chamoli, 37 in Haridwar, 31 in Almora, 11 in Tehri and 11 in Uttarkashi," Director General Banshidhar Tiwari said and added, "Arbitrary fees from private schools and pressure on parents for books will not be tolerated. Raids will continue in schools."
Information leak
Moreover, it was observed that Khatima private schools are already being informed by their sources about the raids being conducted by the Education Department regarding the conduct of the NCERT syllabus. Following this, the school management is asking children not to bring books by private publishers in school bags on the day of the raid. Such cases have come to light during a surprise inspection before the department team led by in-charge Block Education Officer Satish Gupta.
There are a total of 5331 private schools in Uttarakhand. However, as per the data of the November 2022 report, Uttarakhand ranks 35th among 37 states and union territories of the country in the field of education performance. On the other hand, the number of private schools in India is 3,35,844.
