Hyderabad: It has come to light that the school run by the Sri Chaitanya Group, where the Nursery student died in an elevator mishap on Tuesday, does not have permission from the State Education Board.
The school located in Dilsukhnagar, however, has been functioning for more than four years. Education officers found that there were several other primary schools run by the group that did not have permission to operate.
The Education Board is now receiving flak for turning a blind eye to the scam pulled off by one of the biggest educational groups in the state. Officials say that they had raided a few schools in June and July, but the school management had duped them.
Experts say, the Sri Chaitanya Group had used a technical flaw in the government’s education policy to run the schools without registration or permission from regulatory bodies.
“We do not have regulations for playschools, and the government is yet to come up with a policy to regulate such schools. Sri Chaitanya management is running this school as a playschool, but they also have 1st standard and 2nd standard here, which is illegal,” said Mr M. Somi Reddy, district education officer of Hyderabad.
Alarmingly, the Education Board does not have a count of illegal primary schools run by the Group. “We have now found that there are hundreds of such schools run by the Chaitanya Group as playschools in the twin cities and nearest districts. We are starting legal procedures against the management,” said Mr Reddy.
Officials claim that during a check in June at Dilsukhnagar, the school management convinced them that it was just a playschool. “We have come to know now that there are 1st and 2nd standard students studying in the building,” said an education official. No one from the school management were available to comment.
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