Odisha is fifth state in country with around 1,052 unrecognised schools

The Ministry of Education has detected 1,052 unrecognised schools in the state.
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BHUBANESWAR: Odisha has the fifth highest number of unrecognised schools - mostly private Odia and English medium - in the country.

The Ministry of Education has detected 1,052 unrecognised schools in the state. These schools currently have 91,895 students with 8,285 teachers.

Although these schools are functioning with a Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) code assigned by the ministry to keep a track of their academic performances, they are not recognised by the state government.

As per the ministry’s report, while Jharkhand has the highest 5,879 such schools, it is followed by Bihar (4,915), Assam (3,630), West Bengal (3,380) and Odisha. On the whole, there are 22,298 such schools in the country.

Secretary of the department of School Education and Literacy Sanjay Kumar had recently written a letter to the states asking them to either recognise such schools by March-end this year or take appropriate action against them. As per the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, no school can be established or operated without obtaining recognition from the government. Section 19 of the Act states that the schools established before the commencement of the Act and not fulfilling the norms shall take steps to fulfil them within three years from the date of commencement of the Act.

It also mandates that if such schools fail to fulfil the norms, the recognition shall be withdrawn and they will cease to function. In spite of these provisions, 1,052 unrecognised schools in the state are continuing in UDISE+ till date.

In his letter, Sanjay Kumar highlighted that many unrecognised schools were included in the UDISE+ list with the condition that they meet the standards mandated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, within three years of its implementation in 2010.

However, the Odisha Abhibhabak Mahasangha (parents’ body) claims that the number of unrecognised schools is much more. As per the UDISE+ report of 2023-24, apart from the government schools that are recognised, the state has close to 12,000 schools that are either government-aided, privately-run and run by other bodies.

“If you look at the RTE Pardarshi portal, only 3,615 schools allow RTE admissions. Which means, the rest are not RTE compliant,” said chairman of Odisha Abhibhabak Mahasangha, Basudev Bhatta. In Bhubaneswar, there are over 500 private schools of which, only 235 are recognised.

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