The number of applications received for admissions under the Right to Education (RTE) Act quota in the State is more than double the seats available, with 2.57 lakh applicants vying for 1.11 lakh seats. Many parents may be unable to obtain seats for their wards due to the high demand.
While some private schools have received over 650 applications for RTE quota seats — resulting in one seat being contested by almost 20 applicants, there some schools with no takers for the seats. As many as 223 schools across the State having a total of 1,120 seats have not received a single application.
Online lottery system
Lokayukta Y. Bhaskar Rao along with Minister of State for Primary and Secondary Education Kimmane Ratnakar and department officials inaugurated the online lottery system for seat allotment on Wednesday.
About 1.31 lakh applications were rejected as there were duplicate and incomplete applications. With parents having the option of applying for more than one school, the total number of options exercised by parents is 5.76 lakh.
The highest number of applications has been received in Sharanbasaveshwar Residential School in Kalaburagi — 673 applications for 113 seats.
The list of the top 50 schools that received the highest number of applications, prepared by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), reveals that 33 of them are in Bengaluru North and Bengaluru South districts. Officials say that high number of applications in these schools can be attributed to the location advantage as there may not be any other “good” school in the locality.
Some schools in Bengaluru have received around 700 applications, however their names do not figure on the list prepared by the department as officials say that multiple and incomplete applications filed by parents were weeded out. Around 1.19 lakh applications, of the total 3.89 lakh, have been rejected for the same reason.
Parents will get a message about the seat allotment and they can get their children admitted in schools after March 20. The department will also conduct more rounds to fill vacant seats.
