Karnataka: RTE fourth round impractical, says private school

Bengaluru: With the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) deciding to hold a fourth round of allotment to seats in schools under the Right to Education (RTE) quota, private school managements are upset and questioned the practicality of the decision.

“This move is totally impractical as parents who switch schools now would demand a refund. It is high time that the authorities realise that the seats which are vacant are the ones which are out of demand. The education ministry has completely failed to understand the inconvenience faced by the unaided private schools in such a situation,” said Shashi Kumar D., General Secretary of Associated Managements of English Medium Schools in Karnataka (KAMS), pointing out the financial problems they would face as an impact. According to Venkata Subbaiah Chetty, President of Unaided Schools Association in Ramanagara, the ‘delayed decision’ will affect all the stakeholders in the system managements, parents and students in a negative manner.

“While procuring logistics such as books and uniforms for the newly admitted is challenging for the managements, parents face inconvenience in relocating their ward(s) from one school to another, applying for refunds. The situation poses even more problems to the students as they have already lost almost two months of the curriculum,” he said.

“The government should stick to a calendar and conclude allotments by the end of March to avoid problems like this,” he added.

Meanwhile, a special link has been made available on the DPI website for parents to choose seats at various schools across the state considering the availability. Parents are also allowed to change preferences which they had entered in the earlier stages.

“We decided to open up the special link in the website as we received grievances related to errors they faced while opting for the schools,” said an official from the department adding that seats were still spotted vacant in some private schools.