COIMBATORE: A private school established by yesteryear Hindi-cum-Bengali actor and Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Mithun Chakraborty in Coimbatore has been allegedly functioning without State Government recognition.
School Education Department authorities have indicated that a closure notice would be issued to the Monarch International School located on Ponnuthu Road in Pannimadai here at the end of the current academic year.
Mithun Chakraborty, who shot into national fame with his role in the musical hit ‘Disco Dancer’ in the early eighties, had settled in the Nilgiris where he runs a catering institute among others. He launched the Monarch International School, which follows the Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) syllabus. Last month, the School Education Department received a complaint alleging that the school had not obtained the building structural stability certificate from the local engineer and that the teachers were being humiliated by the principal.
While inquiring into the allegations raised in the complaint, the School Education Department officials were informed that the management was planning to shut down the school due to a fall in students’ admission.
Teachers of the school and non-teaching staff had also sent a separate petition to the Coimbatore Chief Educational Officer A Gnanagowri urging her not to permit the school to shut down as their future would be in peril. “An MP cannot be allowed to abuse the Indian educational system like this,” said a complainant.
Gnanagowri told Express that during inspections it was found that the school was unable to meet various norms set by the Government.
Without elaborating she said the institution had not submitted the application for recognition though recently the Government had made such State recognition mandatory for schools affiliated to other Boards such as CBSE, ICSE and IGCSE.
“It is most likely that this school would be added to the list of institutions that need to be closed before the start of the next academic year,” she said.