Hyderabad: It’s managements of private schools versus the Hyderabad district administration over the implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE).
The office of the district education officer has issued circulars to all private schools in the city to declare whether or not they were implementing the RTE. It has devised ‘Form-I’ for the purpose and asked the schools to give the declaration.
The RTE mandates schools to reserve 25 per cent seats for students from socially and economically weaker sections. However, the managements argue that they would agree to provide quota for the poor only after the government declares how much fee reimbursement they would get per student.
Managements have also raised objection over the department asking them to seek recognition from the government afresh as per the GOs issued in 2010 to implement RTE.
The state government had issued GO No. 41, 42, 43 and 44 in 2010 notifying rules for implementing RTE. However, some private schools challenged the GOs in the AP High Court, which suspended the orders subsequently.
“How can the government ask private schools to give a declaration in Form-I as per GOs that were suspended by the High Court? Moreover, the schools were given recognition for a period of 10 years as per GO No.1. What is the point in seeking recognition afresh?” asked S. Sreenivas Reddy, president, AP Recognised Private Schools Managements Association. The managements allege that the government is not serious about the quota for the poor.
“The government initially said that the fee reimbursement would be decided based on the expenditure the government incurs on each student studying in government schools. This expenditure was estimated to be about Rs 25,000 per year.
This is because the enrolment in government schools is meagre in cities compared to villages. With this, the average expenditure on each student shot up and the government is shying away from reimbursing up to Rs 25,000 per year on each student,” Reddy explained.
The city has over 2,500 recognised private schools. Barring the top 500 schools which collect fees ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 3 lakh per annum, the fees in the remaining 2,000 schools is less than Rs 20,000 per annum.
These schools are willing to provide even 100 per cent of the seats for the poor if the government reimburses Rs 25,000 per annum. However, the schools which collect fees of more than Rs 30,000 per annum are not keen on implementing the quota as they would incur losses.
