CHENNAI: Almost 12,500 candidates from Tamil Nadu have applied for admission under the Right to Education (RTE) Act as of Tuesday evening, a day after the online application portal was opened. A senior official from the State School Education Department told Express, “We have received around 12,400 applications so far and we expect over a lakh students to apply this academic year.”
There are over 1.15 lakh seats in the 8,615 private matriculation schools in the State. Last year, a total of 86,362 candidates had applied while about 70,000 eligible students were allotted seats under the Act.
According to Tamil Nadu RTE rules, 25 per cent of the total seats in private schools are reserved for students belonging to economically weaker sections (families with an annual income of less than Rs 2 lakh) and disadvantaged groups (SC/ST/BC/MBC). The students will be admitted at entry-level grades, i.e. LKG or Class 1.
Karkala Usha, the Principal Secretary to the School Education Department, in a recent letter, directed all matriculation schools to display the number of RTE seats on the school notice board and official website by July 2, and call for admissions the following day.
Online applications will be open till August 8. The names of eligible applicants will be displayed at the school by August 9. If a candidate is rejected, the school should also display the reason for rejection against the names of applicants. If the number of eligible applicants is greater than the 25 per cent of the strength of the school, students will be picked randomly on August 10 with a waiting list of five candidates.