150 pvt schools barred from sports meet in Kaithal

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Kaithal, July 23

Thousands of students of 150 private schools of Kaithal district were not allowed to participate in the annual block-level sports competition concluded today as the school managements had not deposited the mandatory sports fund to district education authorities. While Kaithal District Education Officer (DEO) Ashok Kumar said he was unaware of the matter, Deputy Commissioner KM Pandurang has ordered a probe into it.

As per the DEO office, all private school managements are bound to deposit Rs 6 per student for Classes I-VIII and Rs 30 per student for Classes IX-X as sports fund; for Classes XI-XII, the sports fund is Rs 60 per student of arts stream, Rs 90 per student for science and Rs 72 per student for commerce. Despite collecting sports fund from students, the school managements did not submit the mandatory amount to the DEO office to make their students eligible for the government-organised sports competition.

Sources in the Education Department said despite constant reminders trough emails, many private school managements had failed to deposit the sports fund. “To date, we have received fund from only 23 schools,” said Dalvir Singh, an official in the DEO office.

Kumar failed to give any satisfactory reply when asked why he and his department did not take any action against erring schools. Many parents confirmed that they had duly paid the sports fund to schools. “We request the administration to take strict action against schools so that our children can participate in the next sports competition” said a student’s parent

The DCsaid: “It’s a serious matter as students could not participate in the block-level sports competition because of the fault of school managements. I have directed the Kaithal SDM for a thorough probe and we will take strict action against erring schools.”