Kids admitted under RTE quota yet to get textbooks

Two months after the commencement of the 2019-20 academic year, thousands of children admitted under Right to Education (RTE) Act in private unaided schools in the state are yet to get their textbooks.

Thanks to bureaucratic red tape, students without textbooks are forced to stand outside the classroom in many schools.

Despite several requests from parents, the Department of Primary and Secondary Education has failed to supply textbooks, resulting in their children facing humiliation in front of their classmates.

"My daughter is studying in class 8 under RTE quota in a private unaided school in Bengaluru and she has not received any of her textbooks and she refuses to go to school as the teachers make her stand outside the school," said a parent of one of the students.

The books have to be given free of cost by the department of primary and secondary education. As per the process, the details of number of students studying under RTE quota across the state will be auto-updated with the department. The data is used to supply textbooks to the schools concerned.

When it comes to CBSE and ICSE schools, parents need to get textbooks directly from the schools or from the market. The problem is with the state board schools as the department has failed to provide textbooks on time. When contacted, officials of the Karnataka Textbook Society (KTBS) said they have sent textbooks to the block education officers concerned.

The RTE task force has received several complaints from parents about non-availability of textbooks for children and forwarded the same to the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

Nagasimha G Rao, state convener for the task force, said, "Forwarding the complaints to the education department or to BEOs is of no use. So, we are sending them to the commission."

He said some of the schools were demanding money for the textbooks from the parents, though they get the books from the government free of cost.

Even private school managements have submitted several requests to the department requesting for textbooks. D Shashi Kumar, General Secretary Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, said, "Besides the department officials, we have submitted requests to the chief minister about the delay in supply of textbooks. As per our information, the books were dispatched from textbook society and the delay is at the level of BEOs. If the BEOs do their duties properly, these problems won't arise."

In pvt schools too

Private school managements said even children admitted under payment quota have not received books for subjects like Social Science for class 10 and Mathematics for lower classes.

"It's been two months of the academic year and the department has failed to supply textbooks on time. This is increasing the pressure on Class 10 children and their parents," Shashi Kumar said.