How exactly will two simultaneous developments on Thursday – the Supreme Court making 25 per cent reservation mandatory under the Right to Education Act (RTE) and the State approving the long-pending rules under the legislation – affect admissions in private schools this year?
This remains a moot question with many schools having either closed admissions or in the process of closing them. The principal of a school said that if the rule is implemented this year, it will surely affect the admissions as many of the schools have closed the process.
However, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri said that there can be no excuses to implementation.
“The law is in force and no educational institution can say that it will not implement it on the grounds that they have already closed admissions,” Mr. Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri said.
S. Basavaraj, advocate for unaided central schools in Karnataka, however said that the rules cannot be published even if they are approved by the Cabinet because a case on the issue is pending in the High Court. “Also, the process of identifying students eligible for the 25 per cent reservation is an elaborate mechanism and cannot be done in a month's time,” he said. He felt that it was difficult to implement it in the coming academic year.
‘No comments'
Many school authorities refused to comment on the Supreme Court judgment saying that they did not want to react without reading the entire judgment copy.
“If this is made a rule, we will follow it as we are a law-abiding organisation,” said Capt. Unni Gopalakrishnan, Managing Trustee, Primus Public School. He felt, however, that this would create “social and emotional barriers.”
‘Discriminatory'
K.P. Gopalkrishna, chairman, National Public School Group of Institutions, also felt that the ruling was discriminatory. “I don't understand the logic of keeping minority institutions out of the ambit of this clause. This is not the way to bring underprivileged children into mainstream,” he said.
