No CoR? Ready to Face Action

Bhubaneswar (Surjit Kumar Dhal): The District Education Officers of Odisha to take action against the schools lacking certificate of recognition and issue show cause notice for their closure. School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash told the Assembly recently that private English medium schools not having the CoR will face action and the DEOs have been issued instructions to take steps in this regard. But the Government couldn’t take any action because now a days private educational institutes without CoR provide them handsome money.

As per the School and Mass Education department, around 39 per cent private English medium schools at the elementary-level in Odisha have not obtained CoR from the Government. Many schools who have not registered, send their students to the board examination through other schools for years. They don’t bother to obtain CoR as their business in education is going on smoothly.

Odisha has 1,969 private English medium schools where education is imparted to students from Class I to VIII. However, only 1,204 of these schools have obtained CoR, while the remaining 765 are yet to be recognised. Similarly, only 389 private schools at secondary level (Class IX and X) have received their CoR though the number of such schools in the State is more than 1,000.

This has left parents worried as the State government has clarified that schools lacking CoR cannot send their students for admission to Navodaya or Adarsh Vidyalayas. As per government norms, students of schools that do not have CoR would not be able to get admission to Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas or Adarsh Vidyalayas under the Economically Weaker Sections quota.

It is astonished that, such schools are functioning for years but no action was ever taken. It is smelt the corruption in the education department and a collaboration of misdoers with the Government officials.