1: Many illegal schools are operating in the sprawling tribal belt of Taloja-Pachnand, Owe, Kalamboli and Ulwe near Mumbai
2: Ahead of the 2024-25 academic year, civic officials released a definitive blacklist naming institutions in violation of the Maharashtra Education Rules
3: The list came with a pledge to transfer affected students to recognised schools, but for many families, that would mean starting over
The bell rang, though it wasn’t really a bell at all—just a thin metal rod striking against a rusted plate fixed to the gate. Ten-year-old Shrikant, his satchel hanging loosely from one shoulder, trotted past the cracked floor tiles and the fading mural of a globe painted on the school wall. Above the mural, the words “International School” curled proudly in bold English letters.
Shrikant did not know that the cost of that paint exceeded the budget for the entire science lab. He did not know that the school’s name never appeared in any government register, or that its existence was as fragile as the peeling edges of its signboard. What he did know was that his parents had chosen this school because it promised “smart classes” and “English speaking.” For them, those words held the promise of a better future, even if they did not fully understand what they meant in practice. In three months, this school—the only one Shrikant had ever attended— would be declared illegal.
Across the sprawling belt of Taloja-Pachnand, Owe, Kalamboli, and Ulwe, dozens of children like Shrikant would soon discover that their classrooms, uniforms, and morning assemblies had never been sanctioned by the state. The Panvel Municipal Corporation had already sounded its warning: parents must not enrol their children in unauthorised primary or secondary schools operating without government recognition.
Ahead of the 2024-25 academic year, civic officials released a definitive blacklist naming institutions in violation of the Maharashtra Education Rules. The list came with a pledge to transfer affected students to recognised schools, but for many families, that would mean starting over—often at a greater distance from home and with fewer promises of the polished, modern education they had been sold.
By sunrise in the small village of Vaje, the narrow road to the high school fills with the rhythm of footsteps. Some children walk 8 to 10 kilometres from Dodhani, Gadeshwar, and Wageshwar, their satchels swaying gently against their backs. At Vaje High School and Junior College, the day runs in two tightly packed shifts. Arts and commerce students in the junior college arrive at 7:30 am, leaving just before noon, while the younger school students take their place until evening. In classrooms with eighty-four students, three or four children squeeze onto benches designed for two. Space is a constant negotiation, comfort an afterthought.
The staff here is stretched to breaking point. The junior college section functions with just five teachers, one clerk, and a single peon. Several of the teachers have gone months without pay. Seventy per cent of the students are Adivasi, many from families struggling to meet basic needs, yet the school’s board exam results for classes 10 and 12 consistently touch 100 per cent. “What can we do for the girls?” asks principal Pradeep Kumbha, his voice carrying both pride and exhaustion. He knows his students’ successes come despite their circumstances, not because of them. There are too few benches, too little drinking water, and no dedicated facilities for girls. A small 5 kB solar panel, donated by Deepak Fertiliser company last year, powers parts of the campus, but electricity is hardly the most urgent of the school’s needs.
Not far from Vaje, in the remote hamlet of Wangani Twa, primary school teacher Preeti Ramkrishna Kamble begins another day with her 25 students, most from the Kathkari tribal community. She has been here for eight years, weathering challenges that would have driven others away.
During the Covid years, storms tore away the school’s roof, forcing children to sit in ankle-deep water during monsoons for three years. “We used to sit in water,” Preeti recalls, the memory still vivid. For nearly three years, the building stood like that, until an NGO, Saksham Foundation, stepped in to repair it. The midday meals—daal, chawal, khichdi, pulav—
arrive regularly, but the quality of the ingredients is often poor. Attendance fluctuates, as many parents grapple with alcohol addiction and cannot ensure that their children get to class. The nearest railway station is unknown to most here, and the closest bus stop is in Nere, three kilometres away. The school has no drinking water.
In Raigad’s hill schools, these difficulties are not exceptions; they are the norm. Across thirteen such schools, the same patterns repeat—low attendance, crumbling infrastructure, and teachers trying to hold their communities together with little more than persistence. In Haltep, only thirteen students remain. If the number drops below ten, the school will be shut. In Vardoli Thakurwadi, some parents simply refuse to send their children to school, seeing little value in education when survival demands every available pair of hands. For the teachers who stay, the work often feels like a race against inevitability—a fight to keep the doors open, one enrolment form at a time.
Yet while these legitimate, government-recognised schools battle to survive, another, quieter threat grows: the rise of illegal schools. In the Panvel City Municipal Corporation’s Taloja-Pachnand belt alone, authorities have declared 28 primary and nine secondary schools illegal ahead of the 2024-25 academic year.
Some of these were flagged last year but are suspected to have reopened under different names or in slightly altered locations, slipping back under the radar. These institutions often operate in modest rented buildings but promise the sheen of private schooling—English-medium instruction, smart classes, and “international” branding. They charge fees, sometimes higher than those of local recognised schools, but provide no guarantee of quality or accountability.
The official blacklist names several such institutions: Marshmallows International School and Knowledge & Stelle School in Owe, Oxford English School in Kalamboli, Kelsekar English Medium School in Pachnand, Rohinjan English School in Rohinjan, CSMB International School in Ulwe, and Kothari School in Karanjade. For parents living in areas where recognised schools are overcrowded and under-equipped, these names can be powerfully persuasive. A modern-sounding English name carries the promise—or at least the illusion—of upward mobility. Many families choose them without realising that these schools have no legal standing, meaning their children’s education, exam eligibility, and even future admissions could be jeopardised.
The cracks in Panvel’s education system deepened further in June when the State Human Rights Commission conducted a surprise inspection of the Shaskiya Madhyamik Ashram Shala, a state-run facility in Panvel that had been operational for over two decades.
The six-page report painted a disturbing picture. The school was sanctioned for 500 Adivasi students but had only 244 enrolled. The infrastructure was crumbling, and the location —barely 100 metres from a brick kiln—left students exposed to pollution. Inside, conditions bordered on inhumane. Students slept, studied, and ate on the same floors. There were no beds, no designated dining areas, and just two toilets for 136 girls. The lack of sanitation forced some to relieve themselves in the open, across the road from the school. Meals for all 244 students were cooked in a cramped 8x10 ft kitchen, with boys ferrying food between buildings and washing utensils in the open or, shockingly, in toilets.
Every classroom, from grades 1 to 10, lacked desks and benches; all lessons were conducted on the floor. The SHRC called the situation a violation of the students’ right to dignity and urged urgent action from the Maharashtra Chief Secretary, the Tribal Development Department, and other authorities.
For children trekking along Panvel’s dusty roads and steep hill paths each morning, the promise of education often comes entangled with compromise. Legal schools, even those with dedicated teachers, are overcrowded and underfunded. Illegal schools sell an image of modernity without the substance, operating outside any framework of regulation or quality control. State-run facilities, in some cases, fail so badly at maintaining humane conditions that they rob students not only of opportunity but also of self-respect. In every direction, the gap between what education promises and what it delivers is wide, and for many, widening.
Shrikant, like many others, walks through his school gates each morning without realising that the institution he attends has no more legitimacy than the glossy pamphlet that once convinced his parents to enrol him. His teachers are earnest, his classmates lively, and his uniform crisp—yet none of this guarantees that the certificate he hopes to earn will carry any weight beyond the school’s own boundaries.
When the shutdown orders come, as they inevitably will, his family will face a difficult choice: start over in an overcrowded recognised school further from home, or take their chances with yet another private institution whose legality they cannot be sure of. Either way, the stability they thought they had found will be gone.
The roads Shrikant walks will remain the same. The mural of the globe on the wall may fade a little more, and the rusted plate that serves as a bell will still clang each morning. But the fragile dream it calls children toward will continue to depend not just on their will to learn but on a system willing to uphold its promises. In Panvel, in Raigad, and in so many other parts of Maharashtra, that promise is still waiting to be kept.
