Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has urged the State Government to come clean on admissions made in private schools under the Right to Education Act. In his letter to the State School Education Minister, the party’s State youth wing secretary V. Eswaran had said that at a time when the State Government had promised to release ₹125 crore to schools that had admitted students under the RTE, it was imperative that it release the details of the students admitted during the last academic year.
It should also ensure that the schools admitted students only during May and ensure that such admission was online and transparent just as the Delhi government had done so.
Listing out the reasons for his demands, Mr. Eswaran said that the government had announced the release of the money without conducting an inspection on students admitted. The schools admitted students well ahead of the academic year and portrayed the admitted students as those who were admitted under the RTE Act.
The government simply accept the schools’ list as final while disbursing money.
Mr. Eswaran claimed that parents of students who were supposedly admitted under the RTE were unaware of such a move by the schools and when they questioned the schools, they were simply compensated by the schools by deducting the government money from the fee.
This brought to nought the government’s very purpose of helping students from weaker sections of the society access education in private schools, he added.
