164 private schools in Samba not recognised

Vikas Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Jammu, September 11

Like Jammu district, where the number of private schools has witnessed a rapid rise in the last few years, Samba district is also facing asimilar situation.

Interestingly, of the total 216 private schools in five zones of the district, 164 are unrecognised while a mere 52 are recognised at the middle, high and higher secondary levels.

This has been revealed in the list prepared by the office of the Chief Education Officer (CEO),Samba, in which zone-wise detail has beengiven of the recognised and unrecognised schools in the district.

The Vijaypur zone in the district tops the list with 49 followed by the Purmandal zone which has 36 unrecognised schools.

In Samba zone, there are 35 unrecognised schools while the Ramgarh and Ghagwal zones have 28 and 16 such schools, respectively. The Ramgarh zone has 17 recognised private schools followed by the Ghawal zone with 12 recognised private schools.

A total of 11 private schools are recognisedin the Vijaypur zonewhile the Samba and Purmandal zones have seven and five recognised schools, respectively.

Sources said the CEO office had sent the list of both recognised and unrecognised schools to the Director, SchoolEducation, Jammu.

“The main reason behind opening of so many private schools is non-implementation of the fixed criteria by the authorities for recognition of the private schools. As a formality, when a private school in opened, officials go for an inspection and then submit their report to the department which paves the way for recognition of a school. There should be cross-verification of facts by the School Education Department before giving recognition to a private school,” a source claimed.

“Earlier, most of the cases of unrecognised private schools in the Jammu division were confined to Jammu district only but with the passage of time, the scenario is shifting towards other far-flung districts,” the source said.

Chief Education Officer, Samba, OP Bhagat said: “The private schools, after expiry of their registration period, have sent files for recognition but they do have the permission to run classes in the meantime”.

The CEO further said: “The recognition of aprivate school will depend on the fulfilmentof required infrastructure as per the norms setby the government.”