Two weeks after a complaint was lodged against 6 Karnataka schools run by NPS and allied trusts with the Central Board of Secondary Education, the Board has cancelled the affiliation of the schools, reports TOI. Karnataka’s Department of Public Instruction had written to CBSE asking for affiliation of one Mysuru and five Bengaluru schools to be cancelled for flouting RTE.
In a press statement issued on Tuesday, the Board said that six schools - National Academy for Learning, Basweshwar Nagar, National Public School, Indira Nagar, Koramangala, Rajaji Nagar and 4th Sector HSR Layout in Bangalore and NPS International School, Vijayanagar in Mysuru have been de-affiliated.
The schools have been directed not to run Classes IX and XI under CBSE in 2017-18.
The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) had ordered a case to be filed against NPS Group of Schools in Karnataka for forging documents to bypass the 25% seats to students under RTE quota. Commissioner for Public Instruction Sowjanya had said that a written complaint against the NPS was filed with the DPI three years ago. The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions filed a complaint against NPS chairman KP Gopalakrishna in New Delhi.
Niranjan Aradhya, Vice President of Centre for Child and Law had told TNM earlier that forging minority certificates was a common malpractice with linguistic minority schools and religious minority schools.
“More often with linguistic minority schools as the state government has very little control over schools established by people from other states,” he said. He added that one way to curb this was by strengthening and developing state schools.
TOI further reports that students enrolled in class X and XII are permitted to appear in All India Secondary School Examination/All India Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination of the Board to be held in the year 2017 and 2018.
In an email sent to parents, the school said, "We strongly refute the allegations of forgery of documents and clarify RTE students have been admitted for the past three years. We are seeking legal counsel to address the issue, and all processes are under way.”
Meanwhile, KP Gopalkrishna told TOI, “We have initiated all legal remedies and are confident we will come out clean. We have not violated any rules and done nothing wrong."