Student registration forms withheld - Siliguri Hindi High School headmaster not approved: Exam council

Siliguri Hindi High School. File picture

TT, Siliguri, Nov. 2: The registration forms of Classes IX and XI students at Siliguri Hindi High School have been withheld by the respective examination boards questioning the authority of the headmaster to attest the papers.

The regional offices of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education cited a letter by the district inspector of schools for Siliguri saying the headmaster didn’t have the power to attest the registration forms.

Although the DI couldn’t be contacted, sources in the education department said the headmaster, Akhilesh Chaturvedi, had been appointed without the approval of the state government. However, the management said the school was not government-aided and enjoyed the linguistic minority status, and hence, was free to appoint the headmaster on its own.

Pradip Biswas, the regional officer of the secondary education (north Bengal), said the Class IX forms had been kept on hold after Pran Gobindo Sarkar, the DI for Siliguri educational district, had informed them that Chaturvedi was not authorised to sign on the papers. “There is still one month left to complete the process of registration but we have to withhold the forms until we get further instructions,” Biswas added.

Students of government-aided schools have to get registered for appearing in Madhyamik and Higher Secondary examinations when they are in Classes IX and XI.

The north Bengal offices of WBBSE and WBCHSE started the process for all state-government aided schools in August.

Utpal Biswas, the deputy secretary of the higher secondary council, reiterated that the registration forms of Class XI students would be accepted only after they were signed by a valid authority. “The DI has informed us that the current headmaster is not authorised to sign the registration forms of Class XI and so we cannot accept them until they are attested by a valid authority,” said the deputy secretary.

Sitaram Dalmia, a member of the school managing committee, said: “As a minority institution, the managing committee enjoys the privilege of appointing anyone as the headmaster. We were short of 27 forms for Class XI students and had requested the higher secondary council to issue us the forms. However, they refused and asked us to appoint a teacher-in-charge at the school. They cannot deny us the forms and so we filed a case against the council in the high court on September 28. The matter is sub-judice.”

Sandipan Bhattacharya, the president of the school’s guardians’ committee, said Chaturvedi should be removed and a government-approved teacher-in-charge should be appointed immediately. “We will not take this lying down and start an agitation soon.”