RTE Act grossly ignored by private schools in state

​Vizianagaram: Though Section 12 of the Right to Education Act provides for free and compulsory education for children of poor and disadvantaged sections in private unaided schools through the allotment of 25 per cent seats, there has been no attempt by either the government or the private schools to implement it..

The aided schools have to provide free education to students belonging to disadvantaged sections by allotting a reservation of 25 per cent of the total seats available. The State government has to reimburse the amount towards fee to such private schools according to per-child expenditure it usually incurs on government schools.

But there are no instances of private schools allotting seats to poor students in the district. K Srinivas, a student of Government Zilla Parishad school here said, “I am interested to study in private school as I am not happy with the quality of studies in the government schools. But we cannot afford the fees in private schools.”

But no private school offers seats under RTE to such students since the State education department officials do not ensure the Act is implemented,.

When asked, District Educational Officer K Krishna Rao said that there were legal obstacles to implement the RTE provision of 25 per cent reservation in private schools.”Some individuals belonging to private schools approached the High Court contesting the legal validity of the provision. As the decision is still pending, the government is not keen on implementing the same,” he said.

A correspondent of a private school said, “We have been providing education to poor students as per the references of concerned departments, but we are unable to get those bills in right time and we need to wait for more than one year. So we are not interested in such activities. This year we are not going to admit students under 25 per cent quota in our school.”