Many parents are being turned back by private schools who say they
have received no instructions from the government to implement the
quota
City schools are flooded with Right to Education Act (RTE) queries after the recent Supreme Court judgement mandating all private schools to enforce the RTE Act and reserve 25 per cent quota in admissions for children from the economically weaker section (EWS).
Many EWS parents, armed with their white ration cards, are approach ing private schools for admission, but are being turned back as the schools say they have not received any instructions from the government to implement the quota. The schools are most concerned that the state government, which is supposed to pay the fees of the EWS students, has not clarified how much the reimbursement will be.
Minister for primary education, Mr S. Shailajanath, was to initiate the process of consulting all stakeholders by holding a full-fledged meeting on RTE, but it has not materialised since the minister is busy touring his native district to take part in the ongoing Prajapatham programme.
It is not so much the elite schools, which offer the IB, IGCSE, or CBSE and ICSE curriculum, at fees ranging from `1 lakh to `8 lakh, that are being besieged by parents. The most sought-after schools are the middle-level and lower-rung schools affiliated to the state board and located near slums and in by-lanes, which charge between `15,000 and `25,000 per annum.
Parents want to shift their children from badly run government schools to these modest private schools.
The trend is to move children a notch higher so that they can avail of a better education under the quota scheme than they would on the strength of what their parents would normally afford. Parents also want to move their wards from government-run Telugu medium schools to private English medium schools. With many parents approaching private schools for admission of their wards under the Right to Education Act, president of the AP Recognised Schools' Managements Association S.Sreenivas Reddy said, “We are not in a position to say either yes or no to parents who are approaching us for admissions under the RTE Act. In the absence of clarity on how much the state government will reimburse for giving admissions under RTE Act, we cannot assure them of anything.” Schools have been telling parents who want to avail of the quota, to get a written assurance from the school education department that the government will pay the child’s fee.
Having seen the mess in the reimbursement of fees for engineering colleges, private schools have every reason to be wary of the state government’s commitment.
Most of the RTE queries are being received by schools located in areas where there are high concentrations of lowerincome and BPL (belowpoverty line) families.
City schools are flooded with Right to Education Act (RTE) queries after the recent Supreme Court judgement mandating all private schools to enforce the RTE Act and reserve 25 per cent quota in admissions for children from the economically weaker section (EWS).
Many EWS parents, armed with their white ration cards, are approach ing private schools for admission, but are being turned back as the schools say they have not received any instructions from the government to implement the quota. The schools are most concerned that the state government, which is supposed to pay the fees of the EWS students, has not clarified how much the reimbursement will be.
Minister for primary education, Mr S. Shailajanath, was to initiate the process of consulting all stakeholders by holding a full-fledged meeting on RTE, but it has not materialised since the minister is busy touring his native district to take part in the ongoing Prajapatham programme.
It is not so much the elite schools, which offer the IB, IGCSE, or CBSE and ICSE curriculum, at fees ranging from `1 lakh to `8 lakh, that are being besieged by parents. The most sought-after schools are the middle-level and lower-rung schools affiliated to the state board and located near slums and in by-lanes, which charge between `15,000 and `25,000 per annum.
Parents want to shift their children from badly run government schools to these modest private schools.
The trend is to move children a notch higher so that they can avail of a better education under the quota scheme than they would on the strength of what their parents would normally afford. Parents also want to move their wards from government-run Telugu medium schools to private English medium schools. With many parents approaching private schools for admission of their wards under the Right to Education Act, president of the AP Recognised Schools' Managements Association S.Sreenivas Reddy said, “We are not in a position to say either yes or no to parents who are approaching us for admissions under the RTE Act. In the absence of clarity on how much the state government will reimburse for giving admissions under RTE Act, we cannot assure them of anything.” Schools have been telling parents who want to avail of the quota, to get a written assurance from the school education department that the government will pay the child’s fee.
Having seen the mess in the reimbursement of fees for engineering colleges, private schools have every reason to be wary of the state government’s commitment.
Most of the RTE queries are being received by schools located in areas where there are high concentrations of lowerincome and BPL (belowpoverty line) families.
