Schools threaten not to admit RTE Act students if not reimbursed

Associations in all districts unite to form confederation to voice their demands

May 03, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:37 am IST - COIMBATORE:

Several associations representing private schools in the State have threatened not to admit students under Right To Education (RTE) Act, if they were not reimbursed, by May 15, the fees of those admitted in the past three years.

The associations met here on Saturday and decided to form a confederation that would voice their demands. A resolution to this effect was also passed.

The RTE Act mandated all private schools to set aside 25 per cent of their total seats to students from socio-economically weaker sections of society. Their fee was to be shared by the State and Central governments.

However, the private schools said that the fee of not even a single student in Tamil Nadu had been reimbursed so far.

Maya Devi Shankar, president of the All Private Schools Welfare Association, one of the bodies that participated in the meeting, told journalists that operating expenses of schools had gone up.

However, they were not at liberty to set their fees as it was fixed only by the Private Schools Fee Determination Committee.

“Schools are already under financial strain. If they did not receive the fees from a quarter of their students for years together, they will become unviable and will have to close down, throwing at risk the livelihood of hundreds of teachers and education of thousands of students,” she said

Further, she also called upon the government to exempt nursery and primary schools from obtaining clearance from the Local Planning Authority.

She also took exception to the closure of 14 primary and nursery schools in the district this week.

She said that most of these followed all the norms and said that their cases must be re-examined. Further, she said that the government itself was not sure about the land requirements of the private schools A seven-member expert committee under the Director of School Education was constituted in May 2013 to look into the land issue. However two years down the line, the report was yet to be released.

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