Mumbai: Errant education officers to be named in FIR

There are a total of 674 illegal schools across Maharashtra. Representation pic

The education inspectors and officers of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and various districts, who failed to take action against illegal/unauthorised schools in their respective zones, will now be named as co-accused in the criminal proceedings registered against such schools by the state government-formed task force. A notification in this regard was issued to all education officers and inspectors by Sandeep Sangave, deputy director of school education (Mumbai), on May 4.

Sangave's order reads: "As mentioned in the orders/circulars issued from time to time by the commissioner (education) as well as at the directorate level, closure of schools, filing of FIRs, imposition of the financial burden on property documents (7/12) and shifting/relocating of students to other schools etc was required.

However, this office has not yet received any report regarding the action taken. This matter is serious. The action-taken report as mentioned above should be submitted to this office immediately through hand delivery. Otherwise, the primary responsibility of the issue will be fixed on a respective officer and it should be noted that the officer will be named a co-accused in the criminal case filed by the state government-formed task force."

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Over the past year, the state government has been pulling up education officials in all districts for inaction after a list of 674 illegal schools in the state was released, which highlighted that 239 such schools are being run in Mumbai. The list was shared with all district-level education officials and zonal inspectors in January 2022. Education officers were told to submit an 'action-taken' report before the 2022-23 academic year began.

However, failure to take stringent action against these schools resulted in them continuing to function despite not having state government approval. This prompted the director of education (secondary and higher secondary schools) to issue an order to his divisional subordinates this January. The order stated that there should be no unauthorised schools in the state by the next academic year (2023-24).

Following the order, Sangave also issued a notification on April 25, directing education officials to shut down any schools operating without proper permissions by April 30 and submit a report.

According to Sangave, there are 218 private unaided schools in the city that have not renewed their recognition certificate which is valid for three years for Std I to VIII under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009.

According to district-level data, 674 unauthorised schools are operating across the state. Of these, Mumbai (suburbs and city) has the most (239), followed by Thane (148) and Palghar (143). Of the 239 schools in Mumbai, 222 come under the Maharashtra State Board while the remaining 17 fall under other national education boards. The state school education department estimates that there are over 6,000 students enrolled at these schools.

Nitin Dalvi, education activist and representative of Maharashtra State Student-Parent Teacher Federation, demanded that strict action be taken against the 218 private schools being run in Mumbai without RTE approval. "The May 4 notification says errant officials will be named as co-accused in the FIRs filed against illegal schools. But about the 218 schools under the BMC that have been running without RTE approval for eight years now?"

April 30
Deadline for ‘action-taken' report