RTE server down, info not updated: Mumbai schools

The three city schools that were on the verge of losing their noobjection certificate NOC for noncompliance of Right to Education RTE Act rules have blamed the education department for being lsquoinefficientrsquoWhile the report put together by the deputy directorrsquos office shows how three schools are yet to admit students under the freeship quota of RTE schools have highlighted how the problem lies in the fact that the RTE admissions server has been down for the past few days disallowing schools from updating the information onlineldquoWe got the NOC for our school only in the year 2014 and that year itself ten students were allotted seats in our school all of whom were admitted in Nursery This year too 12 students were allotted seats in our school and we have admitted all 12 Clearly the department has not updated their listrdquo said Kavita Sanghvi principal of MET Rishikul Vidyalaya BandraShe added that of the 15 seats available for the freeship quota at the entry level those that were not allotted by the education department have been left vacant as per directions given by the education department ldquoEven the High Court has cleared this issue Now the education department needs to get its act togetherrdquo Sanghvi saidLast week midday had written about a report put together by the officials of the deputy director of education which mentions the names of three schools mdash MET Rishikul Vidyalaya Bandra Billabong International School Santacruz and Pawar Public School Bhandup mdash for not admitting students from the economicallysocially backward classes of societyOfficials from the department mentioned that these names were culled out based on the complaints made by parents whose children were not given admission under RTE This report was supposed to reach officials at the state education department and the schools flouting the norms were also supposed to face legal action for their mistakeldquoWe had managed to fill all our seats under RTE at the entry level and there was only one candidate for Std I admissions who was stuck for sometime We were waiting for the education department to give us clarity on whether we should admit students in preprimary as well as Std Irdquo said a spokesperson for Pawar Public School in BhandupShe added that since RTE quota admissions are only applicable to entry level classes they were not sure if they could provide admission to a student in Std I On Thursday officials from the school stated that this one particular student has been approved for admissions and will be joining school from next weekldquoWe havenrsquot managed to update the list because of certain server problemsrdquo added the spokesperson The third school in this list was Billabong International School in Santacruz which was blamed for not admitting students in the preprimary sectionHowever the schoolrsquos founderchairperson Lina Ashar had already mentioned to this newspaper that the school still doesnrsquot have a preprimary section due to which admissions could not be approved ldquoWe have admitted students in Std I under the RTE quotardquo added Ashar When midday contacted the deputy director of school education Mumbai region on Thursday he confirmed that the RTE online admission server was down for some daysldquoThere was some upgradation work happening due to which the server was down but the schools should have ensured that all the admissions that they have allotted should be updated online before the deadlinerdquo said B B Chavan deputy director