Fake certificates detected in RTE applications
Mail News Service
Jamshedpur: A large number of private schools in Jamshedpur have failed to comply with directives issued by the Education Minister and the District Education Superintendent (DSE). The DSE office had instructed all private schools to submit detailed reports including their fee structure for the past three years, audit reports, class-wise book lists and details regarding the commercial use of school premises. The initial deadline of April 3 was extended to April 8, yet only 35 out of 78 schools (around 45%) submitted the required information and many of those submissions were incomplete.
The education department is now preparing a list of non-compliant schools and notices will soon be issued to them. Officials have made it clear that all schools must provide the requested data, failing which they will face action. The information collected will be reviewed in the upcoming meeting of the District-Level Fee Determination Committee scheduled for next month. Meanwhile, complaints continue to pour in against private schools for charging re-admission fees and increasing tuition fees by as much as 40% over the past three years, violating existing regulations. There are also recurring allegations that schools change textbooks annually to benefit from commissions. The matter had even been raised in the Jharkhand Assembly, prompting a response from the Education Minister.
In a related development, the education department has completed the scrutiny of applications for 25% reserved seats under the Right to Education (RTE) Act in entry-level classes of private schools. During the verification process, 350 applications were found to have fake certificates, including birth and income documents. Additionally, 184 certificates were found to be unclear and are being sent for re-verification. According to the RTE cell, all applications with fake documents have been cancelled, while valid ones will be included in the upcoming lottery. The lottery process is expected to be completed by April 15, after which the selected students’ applications will be forwarded to respective schools for admission.
