NAGPUR: The number of seats available this year in the RTE pool in the Nagpur district will be 700 fewer, based on the data available after the last school registration date ended Monday. No specific reason could be given by the department of education for the decline, but it seems that low enrolment has forced schools to lower intake capacity, while some may not have registered to protest the pending RTE charge.
This decrease in the number of seats available will not impact admissions, as 50% of the RTE seats remained vacant in Nagpur last year.
Although many schools have boycotted the registration process, the department of education does have an online software override feature in which their data are automatically filled in.
For this, the algorithm looks at the data from the previous year and fills in the registration forms for the current year and completes the registration process.
Shahid Sharif, an educational activist who focuses on RTE, said, “One thing is clear, there is no contact between the department of education and schools.
The boycott is linked to their big pending bills for colleges, though a certain amount has recently been issued. But what this whole debacle means is that students don’t get their rightful due. “Rajendra Dayma, chairman of the Independent English Schools Association (IESA), said,” Let them auto-register us because it won’t affect our determination to boycott the method.
Then parents have to come to the school to complete formalities after the online lottery, and then we will reveal the farce being carried out by the education department. “He added that each parent will receive a comprehensive letter about their RTE boycott. “In that letter, it will be clearly stated that admissions can not occur since we never agreed to put the name of our school in the database,” Dayma said.
IESA is now organizing a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of their RTE boycott. Dayma said, “We’re going to be in Nagpur next week for a press conference, after which we’re going to leave for other cities throughout the state. Parents must be made aware of the inequality being perpetrated on private schools.’
