Students’ future at stake as St Mary’s School is derecognised

The order further states that the school management has to transfer the students to another school nearby and make sure all of them are accommodated before the next academic year begins.

The school management said the derecognition was motivated by vested interests. Father Baptist Pinto,the principal,said: “The management is being harassed because of people with vested interests having political connections. The SSC section is aided by the state. However,since academic year 2004,not a single penny has been released by the Education Department towards non-salary grants. The order has been deliberately passed to jeopardise a recognised,private and minority educational institution of repute. We will appeal to the Director of Education.”

The school ran into trouble following repeated complaints from a students’ NGO,Buland Chhawa. Its president Nana Kute Patil said,“The school had been violating the rules. They collect money in the name of various funds and fines,but have failed to provide basic facilities such as toilets to the students.”

H V Gadhari,Education Inspector (south),said,“We inspected the school on a number of occasions and found a lot of irregularities in the working of the management. They violated rules stipulated by the education department. We listed all the charges against the school in a notice and asked them to explain,but failed to get a reply from them.”

According to the Education Department,the school had been collecting money from students towards fines and funds like teachers’ benefit fund,primary teachers’ gratuity fund,etc. The school also collected lifetime membership fees for parent-teachers association from parents. “The school collected Rs 1.45 crore when the department does not allow schools to fine students or collect such funds. St Mary’s had even collected donations for kindergarten admissions,” Gadhari said.

Deputy Director of School Education Sunil Chauhan was not available for comment.

The school was recently in the news for a controversy over the appointment of the principal. It was also facing an allegation of illegally increasing the marks of 55 students in 2008-09.