Fresh round of admissions under RTE to begin today

Mumbai: Parents seeking admission for their child under the Right to Education Act can heave a sigh of relief as the state education department has announced a fresh round of admissions beginning Wednesday.

The new round is for students who failed to register themselves in previous rounds. The department aims to fill 7,449 vacant seats across its 334 schools.

However, the additional round will have 1,113 seats, which means that the city now has 8,562 seats for students from weaker sections and below poverty line groups.

Meanwhile, the blame game continues with the department blaming parents for vacant seats and vice versa. Education officer Prakash Charate said that parents ran behind “famous” schools due to which seats ended up remaining vacant. “If ‘A’ school is well known in a specific area, every parent will give this ‘A’ name in their RTE admission form. Meanwhile, this ‘A’ school will have only 100 seats whereas it receives applications for say 300. This is where trouble begins,” said Charate.

“Because of this ‘A’ school, parents forget about ‘B’ schools which are equally good. This leads to vacant seats in ‘B’ schools. Surprisingly, we have around 80 schools in our city that are ‘B’ type and only a handful ‘A’ schools. The department asks parents to fill forms of schools which are in their vicinity,” he added. Every applicant needed to fill names of three schools in their locality but most parents only filled names of schools they liked.

One of the parents said, “The website is always slow. Whenever we try to register, it is either loading or it says server lost. Adding to this is the fact that we are not sure how to complete the process.”

RTE’s admission process was made online two years ago to bring in transparency and accuracy in the system. However, most of those who access it are below poverty line and find it difficult to access or operate a computer.

B.R. Pandey, deputy education officer, said, “We wish with this additional round, we will be able to fill maximum seats. If not, we will have no option but to continue with the filled in seats.”

Documents needed

• Address proof
• Caste certificate
• Disabled certificate (if any)
• Family income proof
• Birth certificate