Investigating the genuineness of the GMVSS

There have been several attempts in India by the scammers to loot and plunder students under the guise of “secondary and senior secondary certificates.” Several fake institutions and boards came into being and students were awarded with the certificates but how long would such degrees survive? I felt a serious need to discuss the genuineness of the GMVSS educational board because it is still listed by the Delhi Directorate of Education as a fake board. In May 2018, the DDoE published a list of several fake educational boards operating in Delhi and the list included the GMVSS.

The GMVSS, or the Grameen Mukt Vidhyalayi Shiksha Sansthan, came into being in 2015. Its founder is famous educationist Dr Shabab Aalam, who hails from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.
The GMVSS started first on 23 April 2015 with its base office at Delhi, with a regional office in Haldwani, Uttarakhand as it aimed to promote open education in the rural areas in Uttarakhand. Its recognition with the Government of Uttarakhand was notified in the official state gazette, copies of which are still available on the official website of GMVSS. It is evident from several official letters issued from the Chief Minister Office of the Uttarakhand and from several state boards that the GMVSS started as a legal valid board to not only issue certifications but also to set standards of education. On 3 December 2015, a letter from the Chief Minister Office of Uttarakhand was addressed to Shabab Aalam, the GMVSS chairman, which stated that the examination plan and the curriculum of the GMVSS was studied in detail by Uttarakhand’s Directorate of Education and the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Uttarakhand, and it was found on par with the Uttarakhand Board of School Education.

The letter was written after Dr Aalam had submitted a proposal to the Government of Uttarakhand about promoting open schooling in the rural and village areas of the state. The letter makes a mention that the Uttarakhand’s Government and Directorate of Education has had issued no objection certificates in past to the examinations conducted by GMVSS. The letter from the Uttarakhand’s CM office states that the UBSE has informed all other state boards in the country and the COBSE, Council of Boards of School Education in India, that the GMVSS issued certificates are valid for employment and higher education. Another official paper from the Chief Minister Secretariat that dates 10 March 2016 mentions that the Uttarakhand Government approves the SSC and HSC certificates issued by the GMVSS in order to help promote education among backward people.

However, GMVSS came under suspicion when its namesake “Rural Institute of Open Schooling” (RIOS) began to compete with it, and use the common name of the GMVSS, i.e., Grameen Mukt Vidhyalayi Shiksha Sansthan (in Hindi), and thence making a dispute. The GMVSS moved from Uttarakhand to Himachal Pradesh to seek recognition from the Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education and it was recognised by them on 1 December 2017. Subject to RIOS dispute, the HPBOSE withdrew the recognition on 5 February 2019. Remembering that following the GMVSS’s recognition from the HPBOSE, the Delhi’s Directorate of Education had published a list of several fake boards operating in Delhi in May 2018 and the list included the GMVSS. Thereafter the GMVSS submitted documents related to its genuineness to the Directorate which has so far done nothing. There is no clarification available anywhere discussing the genuineness of documents submitted by the GMVSS to the DDoE.

On the 10th September 2019, several months after the HPBOSE withdrew its recognition from the GMVSS, a judgement was delivered by judges Dharam Chand Chaudhary and Jyotsna Rawal Dua in the High Court of Himachal Pradesh that ruled the students who have had qualified from the GMVSS between 1st December 2017 and 5th February 2019, were as much qualified as any student who had passed the similar exams from the schools in Himachal Pradesh. In the case titled “Priyanka Devi vs the State of H.P and others”, the judges state that, “since the petitioner has already qualified the 10+2 examination from the school during this period, therefore, the qualification so acquired by her is equivalent to 10+2 qualification acquired by a student from the Senior Secondary Schools situated in the State of Himachal Pradesh.” The court also allowed her to study on the basis of the GMVSS issued certificates and those were regarded valid. On 12 February 2021, Justice Dua delivered another judgement for the case “Yashoda vs the State of H.P” that regarded GMVSS certificates issued between 1-12-2017 and 5-02-2019 as valid for higher education and also for securing jobs in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The High Court subsequently delivered several verdicts that ruled the GMVSS issued certificates, issued between this period as valid.

The GMVSS is considering agencies such as the COBSE and has sent proposals seeking recognition to several state governments. For the time being it is not affiliated with any educational board, but it is expected that it will gain recognition in nearby future. The fact remains there that the Hon’ble High Court of Himachal Pradesh has ruled in several cases that the certificates issued by the GMVSS between 1-12-2017 and 5-02-2019 are valid for both the higher education and employment in the state of Himachal Pradesh.

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Aaqib Anjum Aafi

The author is a biographical researcher and scholar… Read More