SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Tuesday ordered the banning of all schools run by banned Jamaat-e-Islami (Jel) in the union territory. The administration also asked the schools to facilitate the admission of students within a fortnight.
The schools are being run in the name of Falah-e-Aam (Welfare for All), a trust set up by the JeI. It is registered with the government on July 31, 1972.
The ban order has been issued in the wake of investigations by the State Investigation Agency.
SIA investigations have revealed gross illegalities, outright fraud and mass-scale encroachment of government lands by FAT-run schools across J&K, sources said. Against this backdrop, the School Education Department has ordered the cessation of academic activities in the FAT-affiliated schools.
“All the students studying in these banned institutions shall admit themselves to nearby government schools for the current academic session, i.e, 2021-2022. All CEOs/Principals/ZEOs shall facilitate the admission of these students,” the government order issued by Principal Secretary, School Education Department, B.K. Singh. It added that all academic activities in schools across J&K run by the ‘Falah-e-Aam’ trust shall cease immediately.
There are around 350 schools of FAT running across J&K and hundreds of people are working as teachers and non-teaching staff.
On 28 February 2019, when the Union home ministry banned Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu & Kashmir on grounds of being in “close touch with terrorists”, police and magistrates sealed several Jamaat-e-Islami offices and also issued notices to schools run by the Falah-e-Aam Trust (FAT), asking them to close down.
Later, the government issued a clarification that these schools would not be closed down.
In 1990, when the then administration had banned Jamaat-e-Islami, it had banned Falah-e-Aam Trust (FAT) too. Thousands of FAT teachers were absorbed in government services.
Before 1972, Jamaat-e-Islami was already operating several schools, which were handed over to FAT. With new schools too coming up under the trust, FAT today controls around 350 middle and high schools, including 300 in the Valley. FAT officials claim close to 1 lakh students are enrolled and over 5,000 teachers engaged.
FAT schools follow the NCERT syllabus as prescribed by the state’s education department and the school board. They also have a separate class for Islamic Studies and Arabic and introduced English at the pre-primary level more than two decades before government schools did.