Schools seek increase in RTE reimbursement fee

The Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka has said that the Education Department should consider a hike of 15 to 25 per cent from last year while calculating per child expenditure incurred by schools to determine the fee reimbursement amount under the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

The Education Department is now in the process of reimbursing fees to private schools that have admitted children under the 25 per cent RTE quota for disadvantaged children.

For this purpose, it has asked managements to furnish particulars based on the total recurring expenditure as per the audited financial statement of the previous academic year.

Increase in expenses

This, the association says, is “unreasonable and arbitrary” since the expenses are bound to have gone up from the previous year for reasons such as increase in salaries, rent and administrative expenses.

It says that an increase of 15 to 25 per cent from that amount should be considered keeping this in mind.

Fixed sum

The government has fixed a maximum reimbursement sum of Rs. 11,848 a year for a child admitted to Class 1 and Rs. 5,924 a year for a child in pre-school.

So far, 50,256 underprivileged children have been admitted to schools across the State under this provision.