Bengaluru: Right to Education process delayed again

Bengaluru: The government may have introduced an online Right to Education (RTE) application module and direct transfer of fee reimbursement to schools to make the process of admission of underprivileged children to private schools easier, but delays are creeping in again mainly due to faulty data provided by the institutions.

"The fault lies  with the private schools. Data submitted by  several schools was rejected by Block Education Officers in the academic year 2016-17 as they  failed to provide all the necessary information in the required format. The schools then directly approached the DDPI for release of grants, giving revised information to ensure that they got the fee reimbursement at the earliest and many succeeded," said an officer.

Many officers feel that building a foolproof mechanism is essential. "This year even the Aadhar number has been made mandatory. It is very sad to see schools failing to submit correct information even after all the data was provided online,' said a DPI officer.

Going by official figures, BEOs approved of student data provided by 942  schools under RTE , and were unhappy with data provided by 100 other schools in Bengaluru North academic district in the year in question. At the DDPI level, however, data provided by 1,018 schools was approved and only that of three schools was rejected.

In Bengaluru South academic district,  BEOs approved of RTE student data provided by 857 schools and rejected that of 584 schools. The DDPI however, approved data provided by 1,417 schools and rejected data submitted by three schools.

In Bengaluru Rural academic district, the BEOs approved student data provided by 86 schools and rejected that of 100 schools. But the DDPI approved data of 177 schools and rejected the submission of only eight schools.