Jammu, Sept 10: In sheer violation to the government order for observing gazetted holiday on Jumat-ul-Vida, many private schools in Jammu city remained functional on Friday, forcing parents to send their wards to attend classes.

 The managements of these schools, however, said the decision vis-à-vis observing holiday on Jumat-ul-Vida was a late night development and they could not convey it to the parents.

 Despite the Education department’s warning for stern action, there had been little follow-up by the private schools. Though all the government schools and majority of private educational institutions, in compliance of the government order, remained closed, some of the private institutions violated the order with impunity.

 “The school management disobeyed the government orders and did not announce holiday, though it was prominently published in all newspapers. They forced us to send our wards to schools while all other schools in the area remained closed,” complained Shilpa Khajuria of Mubarak Mandi. Her four-year-old daughter is studying in Class Ist in a private school in old city. She said if the parents don’t send their ward to school on holiday the school authorities punish the child, besides charging a hefty amount as fine.

 Suraj Prakash, another parent said, “The private schools are not violating government orders for first time. These schools hardly obey government norms. They always do things their own way.”

 A monitoring team of the Directorate of School Education headed by Joint Director, S S Dutta, paid a surprise visit to the city and peripheral areas couple of days back after the complaints of functioning of schools on Gazetted holiday. The team found many private schools functional despite a government holiday.

 The Directorate of School Education had recently constituted a monitoring team after the state government’s directions to check the functioning of the private schools.

 It has been learnt that some parents had made complaint to the Minister for Education, Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed that some private schools were functioning on government holidays, following which the order of constituting a monitoring team was issued to the Directorate of School Education.

 Official sources said several schools in the outskirts of Jammu city also remained opened on holiday.

 Talking to the Greater Kashmir, Director School Education Jammu, Zahida Khan said she had discussed the matter with the government and stern action would be taken against schools violating the government order.

 She said the department had sought an explanation from those schools which were found functional on Shab-e-Qadr. “They should adhere to the government calendar as the rules are meant for adherence. We will initiate a stern action so that nobody violates the government order again.”

Lastupdate on : Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Sep 2010 00:00:00 IST