159 private schools in Pulwama operating without registration

Pulwama, Jan 03: After the expiry of a six month grace period, only a handful of private schools in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district managed to renew their registrations.
Officials of the school education department revealed that there were around 159 private schools in Pulwama whose valid registrations had expired during the past couple of years.
The officials added that in July of last year they were given a six month grace period to complete the renewal process for their expired registrations.
Chief Education Officer, Pulwama, Abdul Qayoom Nadvi, told Rising Kashmir that only 30 to 35 schools have been able to completely renew their registrations.
“The case file of these schools has been submitted to the directorate of school education,” he said, adding that they wished to see these schools completing their pending registrations on time .
As per a verification report prepared by the office of CEO Pulwama out of these 159 schools 17 were falling in Awantipora, 21 in Kakapora, 9 in Lurgam, 29 in Pampore, 30 in Pulwama, 15 in Shadimarg, 24 in Tahab and 16 in Tral zone of the district.
The document further reads that two schools were unrecognised while five schools didn’t submit documents for verification.
The Chief Education Officer said that delay in getting the registrations by these private schools is giving rise to various complexities.
“The schools have retained students for their commercial interests but there will be issues like issuance of certificates, conduction ofclasses and students of some schools don’t figure on Unified District Information System for Education(UDISE) ,” he said.
The CEO said that the schools have certain deficiencies including land, building and affiliation related issues due to which the renewal conditions are not fulfilled.
He added that they want to secure the careers of students before taking action against such private schools which failed to renew their registrations.
Few days ago the Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education issued a decisive order against 60 private schools of Kashmir division whose affiliations have expired and which failed to submit extension case files.
The board sanctioned the tagging of on-roll students from these institutions with nearby government high or higher secondary schools.
Notably, around 15 private schools from Pulwama district fall in the list.