Parents who are pinning their hopes on obtaining a seat for their child under the RTE quota for the academic year 2017-18 can apply to any number of private schools in their neighbourhood.
The move is likely to bring in a lot of cheer as in the last academic year, students could only apply to a maximum of five schools in their neighbourhood. Based on this, most parents would apply to what they considered were the top five schools.
“So, while there was huge demand for seats in some schools, some others would not get any applications. We hope that this move of applying to any number of private schools will reduce the number of vacant RTE quota seats in private schools,” Sowjanya, Commissioner for Public Instruction said.
In urban areas, a municipal ward constitutes the neighbourhood, while in rural areas, a revenue village will be considered a neighbourhood.
Last year, nearly 17,000 of the total 1.15 lakh seats under the RTE quota were lying vacant owing to the skewed demand. Although there were 2.74 lakh applications, only around 1.44 applications were considered valid.
Another change that the Department of Public Instruction plans to implement this year is to chalk out an integrated list of applicants who have not obtained seats through the first few rounds and allot them seats in schools in the adjoining wards where the number of seats exceed the applications received.
Aadhaar cards
Meanwhile, the department, which has already made Aadhaar mandatory for a child and one parent — either the mother or the father — for seeking a seat under the quota, will soon issue a notification stating that the parents will be eligible for a seat in the neighbourhood based on their Aadhaar address. “If parents have their Aadhaar card in their hometowns and reside elsewhere, they have the option of applying for the Aadhaar card or applying for a change of address on their Aadhaar cards,” a source in the department pointed out.
