Over 1,000 schools operating in Odisha in violation of RTE Act

Over 1,000 schools in the state continue to operate without recognition from the School and Mass Education department, in violation of the Right to Education Act, reported Diana Sahu of The New Indian Express.

This, despite the fact that the department has every year been directing its district education officers (DEOs) to trace such schools and ask them to fulfil the parameters required for the recognition.

According to the reports of Ministry of Education and Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA), there are 1,052 unrecognised schools in Odisha, which do not have the mandatory Certificate of Recognition (CoR) from the state government. The schools, however, continue to operate and admit students year after year. As per the UDISE+ 2023-24 report of the Ministry of Education, there are 91,895 students in such schools and they employ 8,285 teachers.

As per the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, no school can be established or operated without obtaining recognition from the government. Section 19 of the Act states that the schools established before the commencement of the Act and not fulfilling the norms shall take steps to fulfil them within three years from the date of commencement of the Act.

Officials of the School and Mass Education department said there are several parameters that are required to be fulfilled by a school to get CoR and some of these include registration certificate, appropriate school infrastructure and maintenance, structural safety certificates, a fixed teacher-student ratio, qualified teachers, reservation of 25 pc seats for socioeconomically disadvantaged children, among other things.

“When a trust, an individual or group of individuals desire to open a school, they have to meet the parameters created for the purpose under Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. They are granted provisional recognition and asked to fulfil all the criteria at the earliest,” said a higher authority of the department.

He further noted that in the event a school fails to fulfil the norms, the recognition shall be withdrawn and the school will cease to function. And in case, a person or organisation is found running the school after the recognition is withdrawn, they shall be liable to a fine which may extend up to Rs 1 lakh and in case of continuing contraventions, to a fine of Rs 10,000 for each day for as long as the contravention continues.

However, in the absence of regular monitoring of such schools by the DEOs concerned, the institutions continue to operate without CoR. Students studying in such schools are not eligible to apply for scholarships or get admission to central government-run schools in any part of the country, added TNIE.

President of National Parents’ Federation Bhumohan Bebarta Patnaik, who has filed a petition in the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) in this regard, said by continuing to operate without CoR, the schools are putting careers of thousands of children at stake.

Meanwhile, the directorate of elementary education has directed all DEOs except Deogarh, to act against private schools operating without valid CoR. The directive comes after OHRC sought details on such schools.