Karnataka: Private schools’ body urges Education Dept to complete Right To Education formalities soon

In the wake of the Supreme Court ordering states and the Centre to ensure allotment of 25% seats at private schools to children under the Right To Education (RTE) quota, the Organisation for Unaided Recognised Schools in Karnataka has urged the Department of School Education and Literacy to take steps to ensure compliance with the apex court’s order.

In its petition submitted to the Commissioner of the Department of School Education and Literacy, the organisation has called on the department to ensure formalities, including issuance of notifications, activation of the online portal for admissions and the publication of the admission schedule, are completed ahead of time. Uncertainty and administrative ambiguity would pose significant hurdles to the RTE admission process, the organisation stated.

Although Karnataka can boast of being the first state to implement the RTE Act, the amendments made to Rule 4 of the Act exempted unaided schools that were within a one-kilometre radius of a government or aided school from enrolling students under the RTE quota.

The amendment, aimed at bolstering enrolment at state-run schools, resulted in a marked drop in the number of students being admitted to unaided schools under the RTE quota.

Meanwhile, the petition submitted by the Karnataka RTE Students and Parents’ Association seeking directions to the government to ensure allotment of 25% seats to RTE students is pending before the Supreme Court. In 2018, the year before the government amended Rule 4 of the RTE Act, 1.5 lakh students were admitted to private schools under the RTE quota, said B N Yogananda, president of the association. “The state government, under pressure from private schools, introduced the amendment. This effectively crushed the dreams of lakhs of children from impoverished families,” he added.