Bhopal: Just like what you saw in Bollywood flick ‘Hindi Medium’, the private schools here are defeating the very purpose of the RTE Act and using it for their own vested interest. Under the very nose of the state school education department, a massive scam seems to be scripted in admissions to private schools under the Right To Education (RTE) Act. Anomalies in the admission process under the RTE came to light after the government shifted it to online lottery system.
Following the online process, the admissions to private schools came down to 1.5 lakh as people refused to get their wards admitted in as many as 7638 schools, which in previous years had attracted a good number of students.
The RTE Act provides that in every private school, 25 per cent seats will be reserved for children from the economically weaker section. Admissions under RTE Act began from the academic year 2010-11. The tuition fees of students admitted under RTE is paid by the government and is directly credited to the accounts of the schools.
Till academic year 2017-18, around 9.80 lakh students have got admission under RTE scheme in the state. In 2010-11 around 1.41 lakh students got admissions in 16,383 schools. And then the figures went up with each passing year.
From 2010-11 to 2014-15, admissions were given through applications submitted to the concerned school. However, from 2016-17 the admissions under the scheme were given through online lottery. And ever since then there has been a drastic decline in the number of admissions under this scheme. Around 1.5 lakh students took admission in different school. There were no takers for as many as 7638 schools as parents declined to get their children admitted in these schools. This had raised the suspicion that the schools were indulging in some foul play.
In the year 2010-11, Rs 30.27 crore was reimbursed to schools against the students’ fees, in the year 2011-12 Rs 101. 05 crore were given, this figure went to Rs 145.43 crore in the year 2012-13, to Rs 202.85 crore in 2013-14 and in the year 2014-15 Rs 302.76 crore were paid to the schools.
It has been alleged that schools manipulated the admissions and showed non-RTE students as having been admitted under the RTE. The parents were unaware of this, said sources.
But almost all schools claimed that they have filled up 25 per cent of the seats with students admitted under RTE and have been following the government orders.
Besides some cases have come to fore where the schools were taking tuition fee from the parents and then by showing the students being admitted under RTE Act were also taking amount from the government. The education department employees are required to conduct verifications of the students at schools admitted under the scheme at regular intervals, however this is not being done efficiently. Taking advantage of the apathy of the officials the private schools are minting money.
School education principal secretary Dipti Gour Mukherjee informed that they have received several complaints in this regard from some districts. After the investigations, the department has taken action against one school, she added.
“It is not possible to verify the status of each and every student. Till date we have admitted around 9 lakh students and we have only 3000 workforce,” said the officer.
