The DEO responded on Sunday, writing that the office does not have any record of the new school. Opening a school requires registration and approval with the DEO, as per the existing government prevision. The case of Gurukul has shown that the schools have been operating without following the necessary regulations and is therefore, illegal.
'We don"t have any record of any new school namely Gurukul registered with the DEO,' said Danda Pani Ghimire, Assistant District Education Officer. According to him, the school is illegal.
He informed that the DEO has already instructed the school owners to immediately stop its operations.
The investors originally purchased a private lower secondary school based in Tulasipur and planned to transfer it to district headquarters Ghorahi with the new name "Gurukul." However, legal obstacles halted this plan. Even with these obstacles, the investors moved the school to Ghorahi, renamed the school and began operations, all of which, they did without legal permission.
PABSON president Giri said that the school owners have violated government regulations. According to him, "Institutional School Criteria and Operation Directives-2012" allows the relocation of a school into a ward where there are less than seven private schools and three secondary level schools in operation. But Ghorahi ward number 11, the proposed new location of Gurukul, already has 12 lower secondary schools.
As the provision does not alloww Gurukul"s to relocate, existing schools in the ward protested the establishment of the new school.
The DEO has yet to make a decision regarding the fate of the applicant school.
After the DEO failed to make a decision about the relocation of the school, the application was sent to Mid-Western Regional Directorate office, Surkhet for further analysis. The regional office later returned the application to the DEO, citing it was the DEO jurisdiction to answer this question, a source claimed.
Gurukul"s administration, on the other hand, claim the school is legal and has been approved by the authorities. According to the school"s administration, the school has already received due permission from the municipality office to run classes up to the first grade. Classes up to the fifth grade are being run as per the approval of Nava Kshitiz School, also purchased by the owners.
'We"re in the process to relocate the school from Tulsipur to Ghorahi,' said Tikajung BK an administrator of the school. 'The school cannot be said to have illegally operated as the relocation process is still underway.'
The newly opened school is just one example of a school operating illegally in the district. There are currently over 30 private schools in the district without any registration and approval from the DEO, according to PABSON.
'We"ve started collecting data of illegal private schools,' PABSON president Giri said. 'Over 30 private schools being operated illegally in Deukhuri VDC and western areas of the district,' he added.
Apart from running the schools illegally, cases of relocating schools to other places without adhering to government regulation is also common in the district, according to PABSON.
The DEO has been unable to take action against the offenders.
Meanwhile, Assistant District Education Officer Ghimire said that his office has already warned of legal action against the illegal schools and officials are currently finding out the exact number of violators before launching their response.
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