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AFTER EXERTING TREMENDOUS pressure on Tamil Nadu’s 9,275 private unaided schools to admit students as per s.12 (1) (c) of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009, which mandates that private schools allot 25 percent seats in class I or preschool if any, to poor and socially disadvantaged children in their neighbourhood, the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government in the state seems to have forgotten its obligation to reimburse private schools the (government prescribed) tuition fees of students thus admitted. Two years after it notified state rules for implementing the RTE Act in November 2011, 7,786 private schools in Tamil Nadu which admitted more than 50,000 students in academic years 2012-13 and 2013-14 are yet to receive reimbursement or part thereof.
This delay and lack of clarity on how and when the state government plans to pay up has made private schools wary of admitting students under the RTE quota in the forthcoming academic year. The state government’s tardiness has particularly affected over 6,000 private, unaided matriculation schools (affiliated with the Tamil Nadu State Board of Secondary Education) which are lumbered with the tuition fee burden of s.12 c (1) (c) students while already facing a severe financial crunch due to the low tuition fees prescribed for all students by the state government-appointed fee determination committee.
Consequently, several low and mid-budget schools have asked poor parents to pay prescribed fees for their children admitted under the RTE quota in the forthcoming academic year 2014-15. While larger and elite private schools are absorbing the cost of RTE quota students, many of the 280 CBSE schools in the state report they haven’t received any applications from students eligible for admission under s.12 (1) (c).
“Our school trust has borne the expenditure for the past two years but we can’t afford it any longer, given that our general fees fixed by the fees determination committee is already very low. We have therefore asked students admitted under the reserved quota in 2012 to pay their fees for the forthcoming academic year,” says S. Bhooma, principal of P.S. Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chennai.
With many schools deciding to levy tuition fees upon students admitted under the RTE quota and others reluctant to admit them, s.12 (1) (c) is set to fade out in Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million). According to an education ministry circular, schools levying tuition fees below Rs.5,000 per child per year would be reimbursed the full amount while institutions charging fees above Rs.10,000 per child would be reimbursed up to Rs.11,000 per child. Schools were advised to expect reimbursement in two instalments — in September 2013 and January 2014.
However, the state government has not reimbursed any amount thus far with officials claiming that the delay is due to the Central government’s failure to respond to repeated appeals by the state to allocate extra funds to make s.12 (1) (c) payouts to schools. “We had sent a request to the Centre in October 2013, claiming Rs.25 crore for reimbursing private schools which have admitted children under s.12 (1) (c). But there has been no response. We are now in the process of consulting with the Central government to finalise upon the mode of reimbursing tuition fees to private schools,” says S. Nagaraja Murugan, joint director of primary education, Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile, already burdened by the rock-bottom tuition fees imposed upon all private schools by the fees determination committee, and also obliged to reserve 25 percent of class I capacity for poor neighbourhood children at below-cost tuition fees which haven’t yet been reimbursed, private schools are on the warpath. United under representative associations such as the Tamil Nadu Nursery, Primary, Matriculation and Higher Secondary Schools Association and others, they have refused to admit quota students under s.12 (1) (c) in the next academic year starting June, unless dues of the past two years are cleared.
The onus is now on the state government to raise its education outlay to clear the s.12 (1) (c) arrears of private schools. But whether the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government which is in full election battle mode handing out free mixers, grinders and laptops will be able to raise primary education expenditure is a moot point. But according to all indications s.12 (1) (c) is likely to become a dead letter in this southern seaboard state which prides itself on inclusion and education.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)