Advertise RTE quota seats by tomorrow, state tells schools

Advertise RTE quota seats by tomorrow, state tells schools

Schools in the city will have to admit 25% students from the economically weak section before June 10 and start advertising the available seats by May 31. Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, the state government has issued notifications to all schools, except minority unaided ones, to start advertising the 25% seats in their schools by May 31. The Supreme Court order in its April 12 order upheld the RTE Act and directed schools to implement 25% reservation for economically weaker students at the entry level, KG or class 1 from this academic year 2012-13 itself. “There was a slight delay in formulating these notifications since we were waiting for the state to define weaker sections and set the income limit for economically backward classes. But now that they have been drafted, we expect schools to follow it immediately,” said Sanjay Deshmukh, special project director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan. The directives say the schools will have to display on their notice board by May 31 their capacity, total number of students and the number of seats available for reservation. Schools will have to complete their admission process for the 25% weaker students before June 10. Schools will need to conduct lottery admissions of applications that they receive from weaker sections. After the lottery, the schools will have to come out with a list of students who have got admission. The notifications state that parents can seek admission for their wards only in schools within a kilometre of their residence. Activists Ramasagar Pandey of Aided Schools Bachao Samiti, says that parents, NGOs and citizen groups need to put pressure on schools to take in 25% students from the weaker sections. “The government should have asked schools to add divisions so that they will not be able to turn down applications citing lack of space. The community needs to be on the watch out whether schools are actually admitting such students,” he said.