RTE may now limit quota for poor in pvt schools to 25% …….Akshaya Mukul
New Delhi: The government seems to have given in to sustained lobbying by private schools to maintain their elitist character. It is considering a crucial amendment to the Right to Education (RTE) Act whereby the provision guaranteeing admission to all the applicants will be done away with.
The admission-as-an-entitlement provision will be limited to only the poor children in the neighbourhood and seats for them will be pegged at 25%. Put simply, schools will continue to have the right to screen 75% of the admissions, in a major amendment that will cheer elitist schools and parents of wards studying there. Public schools across the country were vociferous in their demand for dilution of the Act on the ground that the no-screening clause could seriously affect their quality.
Schools as well as state governments are also agitated about the no-detention provisionwhich guarantees automatic promotion to the next class irrespective of a students performancein the law and are demanding a change.
As for the screening process, Section 13 of the RTE Act not only bans screening but also fixes a penalty of Rs 25,000 on a school for the first contravention and Rs 50,000 for each subsequent one.
Signalling the re-think, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said, There are practical problems with no-screening. How will schools like Doon, Mayo, Modern and others give random admission to children? Therefore, I have suggested that while schools will not screen 25% of poor children in the neighbourhood who have to be taken, 75% will go through the screening system that schools already have in place. He added that a practical solution was needed to implement such an important legislation. With Muslim organizations agitated about madrassas not coming under the ambit of the RTE Act, it has also been decided to sort out the anomaly.
The first round of amendments in the RTE pertains to giving the advisory role to the school management committee in minority institutions and widening the scope of child with disability to include persons suffering from autism, cerebral palsy and mental retardation.
Justify 25 grace marks for sports, HC tells state
Seeking to know if the 25 grace marks rule, which was originally meant to ensure that students good in sports did not fail in their exams, could be counted to improve grades, the Bombay high court on Wednesday asked the state government to justify its sports quota policy. The rule had resulted in a number of SSC students getting 100% this year.