A delegation of All Uttarakhand Parents Association (AUPA) met the Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani at New Delhi on Monday and handed her a list of schools of Dehradun which are openly flouting the norms.
The President of AUPA, Neeraj Singhal said the list has names of the schools of State capital which are affiliated by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) but are not following its norms. He claimed that the HRD minister took interest in the complaint and forwarded it to the CBSE for necessary action.
Singhal claimed that the association after proper research has submitted the list of offending schools. He said that provisions of the CBSE affiliation mandate that the schools should prescribe only the books NCERT to their students.
The AUPA President alleged that these offending schools are implementing the books of private publishers which are very expensive and are of inferior quality than the NCERT books. He said that the central board should investigate the issue and cancel the affiliation of offending schools. The AUPA has also threatened to launch an agitation if no action against these schools is taken.
The allegation of the AUPA is however denied vehemently by the private schools. The Principal of one of a school claimed that some of the members of the parents association are engaged in this activity to put pressure on the schools to get students of their choice admitted in some of the prestigious schools.
He said that most of the schools are subscribing NCERT books but in cases where there is problem of availability of NCERT books the schools have to implement the books of private publishers.