BENGALURU: Parents of students, who were the first in the state to get admission under the Right to Education Act (RTE) at private unaided schools in the state, have been asked to cough up fees for when their kids will enter 9th grade as the RTE act only covers education till 8th grade. Parents are now in a quandary as to what their next step would be.
These children will complete their class 8 in the 2019-20 academic year and their parents will have to pay regular fees from 2020-21. Already in some cases, parents have been called by the schools and warned about the upcoming payments. “Recently we were called by the principal of the school where my son is studying. During the meeting the principal clearly told us to be ready to pay the fee for class 9 as RTE benefits won’t apply further. Now we are in a fix with no idea what to do and we cannot even pay such huge fees,” says a parent who is an auto driver.
Other schools are asking alumni associations to pitch in to cover the costs and some have responded positively. According to experts, this problem had been flagged initially but the government did not act on it. “The state government can request additional funds from the centre, or ask schools to consider it as a social obligation. If these options fail, government can consider taking away benefits provided to schools if they do not agree to continue providing free education,” said Prof VP Niranjanaradhya, education expert.
If none of these options work, the only possible solution will be to shift children to nearby government or aided schools. Experts also said that the Government should look at a solution as they had a year left before time runs out for the parents. D Shashi Kumar, general secretary of Associated Management of Primary and Secondary School in Karnataka said, “It is left to the government to extend RTE till class 10 or till the age of 16 and if that is done by the government we have no issues. Because, if we are forced to provide free education for these children for next two years then, the burden will be on other parents which is not acceptable.”