Confusion over RTE seats, parents left in the lurch

As many as 1,11,548 seats have been allocated under the Right to Education (RTE) quota in the first round of seat allotment.

Parents, however, are anxious and have complained about a number of glitches in the allotment.

In a few cases, schools have denied admission to students whose names have been finalised by the department during allocation, according to parents. The department of public instruction has also received complaints in this regard where schools have denied or postponed admissions for students whose seats have been allotted.

Director of primary education B K Basavaraju has directed block education officers to look into the issues and have them resolved.

Nagasimha G Rao from the Child Rights Trust said that even as parents have received text messages on confirmation of seats, in several places, private schools are yet to get the list of candidates who are to be admitted and this has left the parents in a lurch.

For instance, though a private school in ward 194 has 150 seats for LKG, only 15 seats are reserved for RTE. According to RTE rules, 25% of the seats are to be reserved, complained Hanumantha, one of the parents. Meanwhile, while the education department is asking schools to pay for the uniforms and text books of RTE students, the private schools association is opposing it. “In one of the private schools, parents have been asked to pay Rs 7,000 for books alone. In another CBSE school, the amount that parents have been asked to pay is Rs 19,000. We have written to the child rights commission in this regard,” said Rao.