'Right to Education' in private schools in Telangana state a distant dream

Hyderabad: Though the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has highlighted the non-implementation of the Right to Education Act 2009 in Telangana, the state government is yet to form an advisory council to enforce the legislation.

Schools say the problem is that the government has to pay the fees of underprivileged children who have to be given free seats in private schools.

M.R.S.K. Chaitanya, a Right to Education activist, told this newspaper, “The Right to Education Act promises every child free and compulsory education but the government has not even framed the rules for the implementation of the Act. The government has also failed to implement many provisions of the Act even four years after the formation of the state.”

 He says that none of the schools is following the RTE Act as the state government has not formed the required rules. Howe-ver, the Hyderabad Public School has partially impl-emented the law by providing 25 per cent seats to underprivileged kids, 

“When the CAG pulled up the state government, the silly reason officials gave was that they don't have enough funds to imp-lement the RTE Act. I urge the government to immediately form the state advisory council and implement the Act,” he said. 

Educationist N. Narayana pointed out that Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had said in the Assembly on March 21, 2016 that “The RTE Act is  disastrous” and declared that it would not be implemented in Telangana. He was a member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) when the RTE Act was passed.

“The CAG report 23 of 2017 listed Telangana as a non-compliant state. The state advisory council has not been formed and the State Council for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) is non-functioning since the state came into existence,” he said.

Mr Narsimha Reddy, the principal of the HPS, who is following the RTE Act points out the anomalies in the law. 

“The problem is that the government has to pay the fees of underprivileged students who have to be given free seats. The government has therefore fixed a very nominal fee. Schools will have to compensate the amount they will be losing from other parents, which would escalate the fees, due to which these parents will get agitated. This is the reason why most of the schools are not implementing the Act and there is no clear instruction from the state government to do so. We are also not implementing RTE but following the rule of reservation... both cannot be followed.”