Right to Education 2022
RTE Process delayed, Recognition delayed by 4 months, End Result: Fee hike
Admissions process under Right to Education Act (RTE) still not started in Madhya Pradesh, even as most schools had already begun the academic session in April to compensate for loss in learning. With barely a month of vacation, schools will reopen for students in June, but the RTE admission process, which takes months, has not even started.
Wondering why? The blame goes to District Education Officers (DEO) across the state, who have not even completed the recognition process yet. The school recognition process began in January 2022 and should have been completed by February.
As per Lok Sewa Guarantee Adhiniyam, the process must be completed in 45 days. However, it seems that DEOs across the state have dragged that process to May and still stand in quicksand.
Questioning the DEOs across the state, Director of State Education Centre Dhanraju S called upon all the DEOs of the state for a meeting on Wednesday. He questioned them on the pending process.
Why is RTE process so delayed?
DEOs came up with various reasons citing technical difficulties in completion of the process. Even after complete digitalisation of the process, the process is delayed by four months already.
Private school association claimed that DEO office delays the process to get under the counter income from schools.
In his discussion, Dhanraju warned DEOs to complete the process within the next 10 days, so that RTE process can finally start.
RTE process is also going to face many challenges this year with the new strict rules on age of admissions, shared Akshay Singh Rathore, district project coordinator.
What happens if RTE process is delayed? Fee hikes!
With the admissions being delayed, most students eligible and in need of RTE admissions will also take up private admissions. This results in complete failure of RTE in the state.
Last year, only 45 percent of reserved seats under Right to Eduation (RTE) were filled in the state. This gap of 55 percent puts an extra burden on private schools, which transfers to parents with fee hikes and extra charges.
While a few schools are able to book their RTE seats with children of their employees, most of the schools are able to fill only 10 percent of the reserved RTE seats. In 2021, Maximum schools in the state were able to fill up only one seat from the 10 reserved.
Now, since govt does not pay anything for the reserved nine seats, the entire burden of this fee passes onto other students in the batch and school.
Last year, 1.5 lakh RTE seats remained vacant
This is the case with most schools in the state, which include about 28,303 schools in Madhya Pradesh (MP), which were registered under RTE. Moreover, 2,91,111 seats were reserved in the state, but most of them remain vacant.
From these 2.9 lakh seats, only 1.4 lakh seats were filled in the state in 2021. This means 1.5 lakh seats remained vacant despite being reserved under RTE for the academic session.
What is RTE Act?
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009, which describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21a of the Indian Constitution.
Under the provisions of RTE, the government schools shall provide free education to all the children and the schools will be managed by School Management Committees (SMC). Private schools shall admit at least 25% of the children in their schools without any fee.
RTE Process delayed, Recognition delayed by 4 months, End Result: Fee hike
Admissions process under Right to Education Act (RTE) still not started in Madhya Pradesh, even as most schools had already begun the academic session in April to compensate for loss in learning. With barely a month of vacation, schools will reopen for students in June, but the RTE admission process, which takes months, has not even started.
Wondering why? The blame goes to District Education Officers (DEO) across the state, who have not even completed the recognition process yet. The school recognition process began in January 2022 and should have been completed by February.
As per Lok Sewa Guarantee Adhiniyam, the process must be completed in 45 days. However, it seems that DEOs across the state have dragged that process to May and still stand in quicksand.
Questioning the DEOs across the state, Director of State Education Centre Dhanraju S called upon all the DEOs of the state for a meeting on Wednesday. He questioned them on the pending process.
Why is RTE process so delayed?
DEOs came up with various reasons citing technical difficulties in completion of the process. Even after complete digitalisation of the process, the process is delayed by four months already.
Private school association claimed that DEO office delays the process to get under the counter income from schools.
In his discussion, Dhanraju warned DEOs to complete the process within the next 10 days, so that RTE process can finally start.
RTE process is also going to face many challenges this year with the new strict rules on age of admissions, shared Akshay Singh Rathore, district project coordinator.
What happens if RTE process is delayed? Fee hikes!
With the admissions being delayed, most students eligible and in need of RTE admissions will also take up private admissions. This results in complete failure of RTE in the state.
Last year, only 45 percent of reserved seats under Right to Eduation (RTE) were filled in the state. This gap of 55 percent puts an extra burden on private schools, which transfers to parents with fee hikes and extra charges.
While a few schools are able to book their RTE seats with children of their employees, most of the schools are able to fill only 10 percent of the reserved RTE seats. In 2021, Maximum schools in the state were able to fill up only one seat from the 10 reserved.
Now, since govt does not pay anything for the reserved nine seats, the entire burden of this fee passes onto other students in the batch and school.
Last year, 1.5 lakh RTE seats remained vacant
This is the case with most schools in the state, which include about 28,303 schools in Madhya Pradesh (MP), which were registered under RTE. Moreover, 2,91,111 seats were reserved in the state, but most of them remain vacant.
From these 2.9 lakh seats, only 1.4 lakh seats were filled in the state in 2021. This means 1.5 lakh seats remained vacant despite being reserved under RTE for the academic session.
What is RTE Act?
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009, which describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21a of the Indian Constitution.
Under the provisions of RTE, the government schools shall provide free education to all the children and the schools will be managed by School Management Committees (SMC). Private schools shall admit at least 25% of the children in their schools without any fee.