BENGALURU: Advocate General Uday Holla on Thursday argued before the Karnataka High Court that the fee paid to private schools for admitting students under RTE quota could be used to provide quality education in government schools, ensuring the students’ best interests even after they are 14 years of age. He was defending the amendment to the Right To Education (RTE) Act to restrain parents from seeking admission under RTE in private schools if there was a government or aided school in their locality.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice L Narayana Swamy and Justice PS Dinesh Kumar were hearing a PIL petition filed by RTE Students and Parents association against the amendment.Holla’s arguments came as the reimbursement of the cost of children admitted to private schools under the RTE quota would not continue after they were 14 years old (till standard 8).
In the statement, the state government said it had been reimbursing the children’s cost of education, when admitted to unaided schools under the RTE quota. The total expenditure incurred by the state till now is over Rs 1,078 crore. “For the academic year 2018-19, the cost of reimbursing students admitted to unaided private schools would approximately be Rs 700 crore. The same is increasing exponentially every year,” indicated the statement.
“Nearly Rs 1,030 crore is needed to provide infrastructure facilities to 24,981 schools which lack the same. As a result, enrolment in government schools is decreasing,” the government attorney said.
Th statement also cited the example of Kerala which gave first preference to government schools under the act and said that there was no reimbursement to private schools. The same policy was sought to be implemented in Karnataka so as to strengthen government schools, which are the backbone of the entire education system in the state, it said.
On the other hand, Advocate Manasi Sharma argued that the state was spending only 12 per cent of its total budget on education and it was not equal to the national average of 16 per cent. Delhi was spending 26 per cent, she said. After hearing the arguments, the court reserved the verdict.