Kendrapara: Students studying in over 80 per cent of the private schools in this district have been deprived of appearing in annual scholarship examinations as these schools have been operating without no-objection certificates (NOCs), a report said.
Over 30 madrasas have been allegedly committing fraud by siphoning off government funds without investing the money in education of students or infrastructure development. This has pushed the future of the students to the brink.
This is indicative of the commercialisation of education where the authorities of these private schools put up attractive advertisements in the form of hoardings and billboards to lure the parents and guardians for admission of their wards in these schools.
This speaks about the sorry state of affairs in the education system due to lack of scrutiny and checkup by the education department.
Guardians Amarbar Biswal, Pradip Kumar Sahu, Sk Ehasan said that a total of 154 private schools are operating in the district and 80 per cent of them are running without NOCs. As a result, the students studying in these schools have been debarred from appearing in the annual scholarship examinations.
The state government rule has provision of admission of 25 poor students in these private schools. However, the rule seems to be not binding on the private schools here as they never give admission to poor students in their schools.
The state education department is merging the schools having less than 20 students on their rolls with the nearest schools. However, this rule seems to be not binding on madrasas in this district.
It is alleged the authorities in most of the schools inflate student attendance records to avoid merger of their schools. This way the authorities try to gobble up the funds available to them.
Moreover, most of the schools are being run by a single teacher. Residents have demanded the government to intervene and direct a probe by the mass education department.
District education officer Sanjiv Kumar Singh said a probe has been ordered into the lack of NOCs by various private schools while a similar probe will be undertaken against the madrasas after the reopening of the schools.
PNN