The commencement of a third round (and possibly fourth in the near future) in the online admission process to allot 7,000 seats in private unaided schools in Mumbai and Pune to children of poor households in their neighbourhood in compliance with s.12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, has agitated both parents and school managements across Maharashtra (pop. 112 million), because of lacklustre and impractical implementation by education ministry officials. In response to a PIL (public interest litigation) writ filed by Anudanit Shiksha Bachao Samiti (ASBS, estb. 2002) to support entitled parents whose children were allotted seats under the Act but refused admission by private schools, the state government declared September 30 as its deadline for completing the online process which has been dragging on since May, despite school admissions having started in April.
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Section 12 (1) (c) of the landmark RTE Act, 2009, which became law way back in 2010, maintains that all unaided private schools are required to admit the equivalent of 25 percent of class I children from poor households in their neighbourhood (or pre-school if any). Earlier this year in March, the state education ministry suddenly announced an online admission process to be conducted on a pilot basis in Mumbai and Pune (with two rounds to be completed in May/June), and rolled out across the state if successful.
“If the online admission system is rolled out statewide, it will be a disaster. It has been a complete failure in Mumbai and Pune where parents and children have been put through tremendous agony. How are parents in underprivileged households without a roof over their heads supposed to download admission forms via the internet? This year we succeeded in getting over 1,000 students admitted to schools in several neighbourhoods. However, it is the job of the government to create awareness among the weaker sections and ensure compliance with s.12 (1) (c) by school managements — in which it has failed miserably,” says Sudhir Paranjpe, co-convener of ASBS.
According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC, estb. 1888) records, of the 8,332 seats reserved under s.12 (1) (c), more than 85 percent were yet to be filled in the third round of online admissions held between August 16 and 28. Further, it’s clear that most of the seats allotted to poor children under the RTE mandated quota have been filled due to the efforts of non-government organisations rather than of government babus in 28 help centres set up by the state for assisting parents in the admission process. Educationists across Mumbai are unanimous in their opinion that the implementation of the RTE Act leaves a lot to be desired.
Meanwhile, there’s growing frustration within compliant schools on issues pertaining to reimbursements and unsystematic seat allotment which leads to late admissions. This frustration has prompted an accelerated rush for claiming — and getting — minority (linguistic and/or religious) status which excludes private schools from the ambit of the RTE Act’s s.12 (1) (c), as per the Supreme Court’s judgement in Society for Unaided Schools of Rajasthan vs. Union of India (2013) in which the apex court upheld s.12 (1)(c) but (by a 2-1 majority) exempted minority (and boarding) schools from its applicability.
With state assembly polls just around the corner, government officials will undoubtedly have more important tasks at hand than to concern themselves with the fate of Maharashtra’s 12.85 million children in primary education. Comments Ramakant Pandey, principal of Sri Bansidhar Agarwal Model School, Wadala (Mumbai): “The rules of the half-baked RTE Act were formulated by IAS officers who have scant perception of ground realities, while for politicians the Act is just populist legislation enacted to increase their vote shares. The RTE Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court is too confusing to be effective.”
Perhaps lawyers are the only fraternity not complaining about the muddled RTE Act, 2009.
Nadia Lewis (Mumbai)