With the State government amending the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) rules, which prioritises government over private schools from the coming academic year, the Department of Public Instruction has received only 17,310 applications so far. This is a 92.7% drop from the 2018-19 academic year, which saw 2.38 lakh applications for seats under the RTE reservation quota.
At the same time, the number of seats under RTE quota has also reduced drastically.
Parents say they have not applied this year as private schools have been kept out of the ambit of the quota. Most neighbourhoods have government or aided schools in their vicinity. According to the recent amendment, a child can be admitted to a private school under the quota only if there are no government or aided schools in the locality.
This year, there are 17,784 RTE quota seats in aided and unaided schools, which is a reduction of 88% from last year’s 1.52 lakh seats, of which 68,202 were for LKG alone.
“What is the use of filing applications under the RTE quota for government schools? We can just walk into government schools and get our child admitted. But we want private schools as the medium of instruction is English,” said Satish A., an auto driver whose daughter is studying in class 1.
Another disadvantage, according to parents — many from lower-socio economic backgrounds — is the lack of access to pre-primary education should they enrol their children in government schools, which do not offer this facility unlike their private counterparts. “In our locality, there is a government school and it offers education from class 1. The anganwadis do not have a proper curriculum. So if I want my child to have access to pre-primary education, I have to admit him to a private school,” said Surekha S., a home-maker, whose son is four-and-a-half years old.
Department officials said admissions were being done in accordance with the latest amendment. After seeing the poor response, it has extended the last date of filing applications to April 25. The amendment was also challenged in the High Court and the adjudication is pending.
