The number of seats which are available in Dakshina Kannada schools following the 25% seats reservation for implementing the Right to Education (RTE) Act is 2,369 in 189 schools.

The admission process began in the district from March 1 and applications will be received online till March 31. All aided and unaided schools, barring unaided minority institutions, have to reserve 25% of the total seats for SC and ST and minorities under the RTE Act. Of the 25% of seats, 7.5% is reserved for SC students and 1.5% for ST students and the remaining for general merit and minority students.

In Dakshina Kannada district, there are seven educational blocks. The number of seats available last year was 2,274. Compared to last year, 95 seats have increased this year.

The reserved seats are made available for the students from disadvantaged and weaker sections, SC/ST, OBCs, street children, migrant children, children with special needs, differently abled children and children with HIV. The parents will have to produce appropriate certificate like caste and income certificate from tahsildar, certificate from the Health department for the HIV infected.

The number of schools where seats are available in each block are—Mangaluru North (40 schools, 498 seats), Mangaluru South (38 schools, 413 seats), Moodbidri (13 schools, 150 seats), Bantwal (34 schools, 447 seats), Belthangady (19 schools, 260 seats), Puttur (29 schools, 409 seats) and Sullia (16 schools, 192 seats). Of the seats available, 720 seats are reserved for SC, 175 for ST and 1,474 for others.

On the other hand, the state government has relaxed the norm for admission to schools under the RTE Act. The parents seeking admission to their children under the RTE quota can now apply to any school in the place of their residence. Till now, the admission under this quota was restricted only to neighbourhood schools.

The parents have to upload documents like parent’s Aadhaar card, child’s Aadhaar number, caste certificate, income certificate, child’s birth certificate and photo while applying under RTE.

Software problem

Speaking to DH, child rights’ activist Renny D’Souza said the government has made registration of Aadhaar cards of students and parents and recording their thumb impressions mandatory while applying online for RTE admission.

“The technical errors have surfaced thus delaying the process of submitting the applications online. In addition, the PIN code of the Postal department and the PIN code mentioned in the webpage with the school list are not matching. There is also confusion in the names of wards as well.

The sluggish pace of the process have been testing patience of the parents and left many at their wit’s end. A few of the technical errors have been rectified by the authorities,” he said.