JOIN USAided schools refuse admission under RTE
A few government aided schools in the City, which last year admitted students under the 25 percent quota of the RTE Act, have been refusing to do so this year, claiming themselves as minority institutions.
“We will not admit students under the RTE quota this year as we have been certified as a minority institution. In any case the government has not sufficiently paid salaries for teachers. It ought to have paid salaries of 21 teachers but is paying that of only eight teachers,” said Sagayamary, Principal, St Anthony’s Higher Primary School in Pulikeshinagar ward.
The action of these schools could have wider ramifications so far as RTE admissions is concerned, especially in light of the Supreme Court ruling in May last year exempting not only unaided minority schools but also aided minority schools from the ambit of the Act.
It has been the case in Gadag, Chikkaballapur and Chamarajnagar districts as well, according to Nagasimha G Rao, Executive Director, Child Rights Trust. He said that at present schools which have 25 percent students from a particular community can claim minority status, as against the previous rule of 75 percent. Owing to this change as many as 5,000 schools in the State an easily claim minority tag and escape from the 25 percent quota under the RTE Act,” he said.
Left in the lurch are a number of parents such as Manivannan from Fraser Town who wanted his daughter to get admitted to Goodwill English School, near his locality. The management of the school said it would not take any children under RTE quota this year. “They are refusing admission this year,” he said.
Balraj, a local social worker who is helping Manivanan in the admission process claimed that said that as many as five schools in the area including Goodwill and St Anthony’s School had refused admissions on similar grounds.
Mohammed Mohsin, Commissioner for Public Instruction, claimed that aided schools – whether minority or not – ought to admit students under the reserved quota simply because they received aid from the government. However, K V Dhananjay, counsel for Karnataka Unaided School Management Association (Kusma) differed.
“It is the constitutional right for aided minority schools to refuse to admit children under the RTE. The government should just respect the law,” he said.