Parents harassed by flawed online RTE admissions system

The online admissions process has begun in governmentrun schools under the Right To Education RTE Act but there is chaos as the system has issues Parents allege that the website fails to provide them with a password required for further process without which they cannot proceed Some who manage to get the password are stalled when they reach the list of schools as the Google Maps location remains unavailable and they donrsquot know whether the school falls within the permitted area under their residence pin codeAlso read Schools close admissions RTE process yet to beginSome parents helped by NGOs in the process are writing to the government saying if due to the system failure their kids donrsquot get admission the government is to be blamed Representation picThinkstockThe government started the process on schedule but people are harassed by the issues Amidst this a few private school associations are protesting against RTE admissions and have decided to not register for the processPushpa Hasbe who works as a domestic help and is seeking admission for her kid said ldquoThe admission process has finally begun but it looks so uncertain I have already spent an entire day on this process without any success I cannot afford to miss more working days as I will not be able to earn enough thenrdquoAnother parent Shobha Kochre said ldquoWe have all the documents ready We have filled the information on the system more than once but when we proceed toward generating the password the system failsrdquoAlso read Maharashtra education department puts common admissions process on holdOn the other hand another parent Abid Shaikh an electrician has managed to get a password but cannot proceed further ldquoWith the password now we are certain that our signingup for the process is successfulBut our application cannot be complete without including school names But several schools on the website have not marked their location on Google Maps In this case if we pick school names based on our understanding of the locality then the application can raise the problem of distance between school and residencerdquoParents who are being helped by NGOs to complete the application process are now writing to the government pointing out the systemrsquos failure saying if their child does not get an admission then the state will be responsible for itAlso read RTE admissions Fate of 1400 kids hangs on round twoSudhir Paranjpe convener of the Anudanit Shikshan Bachao Samiti which is helping parents from underprivileged backgrounds in the application process said ldquoThe system was begun only to save the education ministerrsquos face as he had promised to begin the RTE admission process before April But what is the point of such a system that is not prepared to run successfully This is just waste of timerdquoUnaided schools protestTo add to this associations of private schools are coming together for their decision of not registering for the RTE admission process Unaided schoolsrsquo associations are planning to challenge the mandatory admissions to preprimary sections under the RTE because there is no feereimbursement for itOfficial speakWhen contacted Dinkar Temkar deputy director in Directorate of Primary Education who is handling the RTE admission system said ldquoThe process has just begun We will rectify the issues faced by parentsrdquo