BENGALURU: Private schools in the state fear that they might lose out on lakhs of rupees which they are going to get from the new admissions for the academic year 2019-20. As the state government has not yet announced the list of schools which will be considered for filling 25% seats under Right to Education (RTE) quota, no private school has been allowed to fill those seats under general quota as well and the schools are keeping the seats vacant and fear that they will lose the money for those seats.
“March is about to end and the government has not yet clarified about the 25% seats. The managements of schools are confused whether to fill the seats under general category or wait for government directions,” said D Shashi Kumar, general secretary Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka.
Meanwhile, some of the schools in the city have started filling the 25% vacant seats. “For the last one week we have started admission as there is a government school in the neighbourhood where our school is located,” said principal of a private school in the city.
However, some schools have decided to wait for the court verdict as the case is before the High Court. “There is a public interest litigation pending at the High Court and we do not want to take risk by admitting students. We will wait for official communication from government or for the judgement by the court,” said another school management representative. The state government brought amendments to the RTE rules in the state under which the RTE admissions will be prioritized at government and aided schools and only in case there is no government or aided school in the neighbourhood, then private schools will be considered.
With this amendment, private schools have not been told whether they need to reserve 25% seats for RTE quota or not. This percentage works out to around 1.3 lakh seats at private schools across the state. The fee at private schools costs between Rs 40,000 to Rs 3 lakh per seat. SR Umashankar, principal secretary of the department of primary and secondary education said, “We will release the list of schools which comes under RTE soon. After that rest of the schools can admit students.”