As per rules, only minority-unaided schools have been exempted from reserving 25 per cent seats under Right to Education
For effective implementation of the 25 per cent admissions to student from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act in private schools, the state government declared that the online Centralised Admission Process (CAP) would be held in April.
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Surprisingly, only 40 private unaided schools within the Pune Municipal Corporation’s jurisdiction would be a part of the CAP.
“In the first phase, 25 per cent admissions for EWS students under the RTE will be held online in Pune, Mumbai and Nagpur. As per our data, 40 private unaided schools from the city will participate in this process,” Mahaveer Mane, state education director (Primary), said.
As per rules, even private aided schools should be included for online CAP. When questioned about the inclusion of such schools, Mane said, “Private aided schools are supposed to implement the existing 52 per cent reservation policy set by the State.”
Questions raised
“As per the RTE and Supreme Court’s order, all private schools including aided or unaided must implement 25 per cent reservation for EWS students. Only minority unaided schools have been exempted from this. So how can the education director go ahead with online CAP with just 40 private unaided schools? The admission round should also include aided schools, whose numbers are more in the city,” Matin Mujavar, president of NGO Shikshan Hakka Manch, said.
Commenting on the issue, former principal of the Kataria high school Deepti Chivate said there was no consolidated data available about the number of aided schools in the city. “But around 200 schools belong to private aided category. These schools are members of a financial institution,” she said.
She confirmed that 25 per cent admissions to EWS students under RTE is mandatory for all private aided schools as well.
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