Consider plea to hike RTE fee reimbursement, says High Court

The High Court on Wednesday directed the principal secretary, department of primary and secondary education to consider the representation of Associated Managements of Government Recognised English Medium Schools in Karnataka within six weeks.  

Justice Aravind Kumar partly allowed the petition filed by KAMS, which had sought directions to revise the reimbursement of fees of children admitted to private schools under the 25% of the seats reserved under the Right to Education Act, 2009.

The petitioner had contended that the government has implemented a new pay scale in 2012 for the staff of the government and aided institutions and till date increase the dearness allowance by 32.5%. The government is using different yardstick while dealing with aided and unaided schools and has not increased the reimbursement amount since 2012, the petitioner’s advocate G R Mohan argued.

The petitioner has contended the state government has chosen not to revise the reimbursement of fees for students who are admitted in private unaided non-minority schools under the RTE quota. The state government has fixed an annual fees of Rs 5,924 for pre-primary and Rs 11,848 for Class I.

The bench directed the department to consider the representation in view of Section 12(2) of the RTE Act, 2009 and Rule 8(1) of the Karnataka RTE Rules, 2012, which talks about reimbursement of amount for children studying under RTE.