Notices to 3 schools over RTE violation

The BMC’s education department has issued withdrawal of recognition notices to three schools in Mumbai after they refused to admit students who were allotted seats in these schools. The seats were allotted under the clause of the Right to Education Act that stipulates a reservation of 25 per cent reservation for financially backward students in private schools. The BMC had allotted the seats through the online admission process that it has been conducting since the past three years.

Speaking about the refusal of schools to admit students allotted seats through the lottery or online admission process, Sambhavi Jogi, education officer, BMC said that after the first lottery Don Bosco at Bhandup, St Anthony’s at Dharavi and Vallabh Ashram at Sion turned away parents who had gone to confirm their admission stating that they were not participating in the process. “With the exception of Vallabh Ashram, the other two schools refused to oblige and hence we had to issue them withdrawal of recognition notices,” said Mr Jogi.

She added that the issue has been forwarded to the deputy directors’ office and the process of derecognising the schools would be completed by the government. “Last year around 18 schools were issued notices out of which many complied and the recognition remained intact, but as the two schools are adamant they will lose their recognition,” said Mr Jogi.

This year, the online lottery has been delayed due to technical problems. In all, the BMC received 4,102 confirmed applications for the 11,557 seats available in private schools under the lottery. Of these applications around 2,400 had been allotted seats in the first round and in the second round 1,293 applicants were allotted seats in both SSC and other board schools. In the number of schools that were part of the lottery 271 were SSC board schools and 42 other board schools.