Bhubaneswar: Despite sharp fall in enrolment of students, a government high school continued to function in Odisha capital as its teachers allegedly hatched a plot to prevent its merger.
Apart from managing funds from the government, the teachers of the over 5-decade-old Government High School at Unit II school even built a hostel and escaped the attention of the authorities through a novel way of manipulating, sources said.
The School and Mass Educaton department has notified closure of the school and transfer of its employees, while order was issued for shifting the students to other schools. The move came following allegations of corruption in the school, set up in 1969, and violation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
Some SC/ST students were accommodated in other schools being run by the ST & SC Development, Minorities & Backward Classes Welfare Department in Khurda district, while others were allowed to take admission in schools in their respective districts.
Only 35 students were on the rolls in the current academic session in the school, which offered education from Class VI to X, had five teachers, two PETs and the headmistress.
Sources said a probe was conducted after Secretary of the School and Mass Education department Aswathy S made a surprise visit to the school a fortnight and found only one student present in the entire school while the rest were absent.
Government norms mandate the merger of schools having less than 25 students but the high school continued to operate for many years with a handful of students, mostly from SC and ST communities, due to the alleged nexus between school authorities and some department officials.
Of the 35 students, only five were from the local area and the rest were brought in from outside allegedly by the teachers. This was in violation of the RTE Act which states that every child aged six to 14 years shall have the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school.
Though official records state that the school had no hostel, except for the five local students, the rest were put up in a hostel which was set up on the school campus.
Following some differences over the payment of hostel fees between the parents and school teachers recently, a complaint was lodged with the department following which the Secretary paid a visit, sources said.
It was alleged that despite the low enrollment, the school continued to be renovated with lakhs of rupees sanctioned under the government’s transformation programme.
School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash reportedly said that stringent action will be taken against everybody involved in the corruption. “Funds were provided to the school under other schemes for renovation and not a transformation programme. However, we are investigating all the allegations,” TNIE quoted him as saying.
