Parents confused as govt. publishes authorised private schools’ list instead of unauthorised ones

Instead of releasing the list of unauthorised schools, as they do every year, the Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL) has published the list of authorised private unaided schools on its website this time.

Instead of releasing the list of unauthorised schools, as they do every year, the Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL) has published the list of authorised private unaided schools on its website this time.

There are a total of 17,125 private unaided schools in the State, and parents are finding it difficult to identify unauthorised schools in the absence of a list naming them.

Schools will open for the 2024-25 academic year on May 29 across the State. The DSEL has published the block-wise list of authorised private unaided schools. But parents say there are hundreds of schools in every block and it is a challenge to find authorised schools among them if there is no list.

“It would have been much easier for us if the list of unauthorised schools had been released instead,” said Triveni, a parent.

Earlier, the department used to identify block-wise unauthorised schools at the beginning of the academic year and publish the information on the website and warn parents against enrolling their children in these schools.

Last year, the department had identified a total of 1,316 authorised schools in the State. Among them, the Department had listed 63 schools as running illegally without affiliation to either State or Central board and around 620 schools for having additional sections without permission. There were other kinds of categories of violations too listed, such as upgrading classes without affiliation or illegally running English-medium classes.

The department had granted 45 days grace period for these schools to follow the rules in April, 2023, but they had failed to do so. The Commissioner of the department was asked by the Chief Minister’s Office to submit a detailed report of action taken against unauthorised schools in August, 2023.