RTE Act: BEOs running against time to complete seat allotment

1,101 seats have remained vacant in Dakshina Kannada

With five more days remaining to complete the process of allotment of seats under the Right to Education Act, block education officers in Dakshina Kannada are running against time to collate the number of vacant seats and allott them as per the guidelines laid down by the State government.

On June 27, the Department of Public Instruction issued a circular assigning a committee headed by the Deputy Commissioner the task of filling seats that have remained vacant after completion of two rounds of allotment.

Of the 1.15 lakh seats in the State, 88,242 have been filled while 26,995 are vacant. In Dakshina Kannada, 1,101 seats have remained vacant. Students, whose applications have not been considered during the first two rounds will be considered in this round. As many as 788 applications from Dakshina Kannada will be considered. The government has asked the committee to complete the process by July 8.

On Thursday, Deputy Commissioner A.B.Ibrahim called a meeting and directed the BEO to come up with a list of applications that could be considered for the allotment of seats. He asked the BEO to prepare the list as per the guidelines framed by the government.

As the BEOs are not involved in the two rounds of the seat allotment process, they are taking time to come up with education block-wise list of vacant seats and number applications filed.

“The department has sent us a list of schools where seats are yet to be filled. We are in the process of collating it. We are asking headmasters of each school to give list of applications that are rejected or no action has been taken so far,” a BEO said.

Another BEO said that first preference would be given to the poor and needy who had not received any communications from the department since filing the application.

Then they would consider applications that were rejected in the first and second round of seat allotment. If seats were less compared to the applications, a draw of lots would be held, he said.

While some BEOs have already got a list of applications and vacant seats from schools, the others are holding meeting of headmasters of schools on Monday and then arrive at a list.

The BEOs hope to finish this tedious and time consuming process of seat allotment by July 7.