Page 18 - EW September 2022

Education News

DELHI for the past five years. They have
Intervention imbroglio requested DoE to maintain the status

quo until the academic year 2021-22
as more than 100,000 EWS children
have been directly admitted under
s.12 (1) (c) by independent schools
since 2018.
The issue of private independent
schools admitting children under
s.12 (1) (c) has been complicated by
antecedent Delhi School Education
Rules 1973. Under these rules framed
under the Delhi School Education
Act, 1973, 394 private independent
schools given land at concessional
prices by government are obliged to
reserve 20 percent of capacity and
provide free-of-charge education
to EWS children for the entire K-12
education span.
Since 2010 when the RTE Act,
2009 became operational, the
Shri Ram School, Delhi: backdoor partial nationalisation practice of concessional land grant
schools has been to admit an ad-
A private unaided (financially indepen- ditional 5 percent EWS children
2017 decision of the aap
(Aam Aadmi Party) Delhi
and claim reimbursement for their
dent) schools are obliged to reserve
state government to conduct
nursery in composite schools with
online admissions of pre-primary 25 percent of capacity in class I (or education until class VIII. In 2018,
the Delhi government standardised
and class I children from economi- pre-primary sections) for children reimbursements to private schools
cally weaker sections (EWS) ad- from EWS homes in their neighbour- admitting s.12 (1) (c) children at
mitted free-of-charge into private hood, admit and retain them free-of- Rs.26,908 per annum for classes
schools under s.12 (1) (c) of the RTE charge until completion of elemen- I-V and Rs.26,707 for class VI-VIII
Act, 2009, has generated conflict tary education (class VIII). Under plus Rs.1,100 and Rs.1,400 respec-
between the state government’s s.12 (2) the state/local government is tively towards books, stationery and
Directorate of Education (DoE) and obliged to reimburse private schools uniforms. Therefore, with private
private schools. the cost of educating EWS children schools claiming to have admitted
The decision to mandate online on the basis of the average per child 100,000 EWS children since, the ag-
registration through the state gov- expenditure incurred by government gregate reimbursement sum owing to
ernment’s education ministry was in its own schools, or the indepen- BPS in particular is huge, estimated
taken following reports that some dent school’s prescribed tuition fee, at Rs.260 crore.
private schools are making fraudu- whichever is lower. Therefore, independent school
lent admission entries of EWS chil- Therefore an August 5 circular managements contend that if reim-
dren and claiming reimbursement of, DoE directing private school bursements of children admitted into
for educating ‘ghost’ children. Since managements to segregate online classes II-VIII are cancelled, they
2017, although pre-primary and class pre-primary and class I and offline would suffer grave financial damage.
I admissions have been made online (direct) admissions from 2018 on- “The DoE’s own modules allowed
under government supervision, wards, which added that tuition fees offline admissions in classes II-VIII
private schools continued to admit of EWS children admitted directly and in a reply obtained by us under a
EWS children directly under s.12 (1) by private school managements will RTI (Right to Information) Act query
(c), allegedly inflating their number not be reimbursed, has come as a filed by us, DoE confirmed that
and claiming reimbursement from shock to private schools. Especially schools can admit students on their
the state government. low-fees budget private schools own for vacancies in classes II-VIII,”
Under s.12 (1) (c) of the historic (BPS) which have been admitting says Dr. Chandrakant Singh,
Right of Children to Free & Com- duly certified EWS children in their general secretary of Private Land
pulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, neighbourhoods into classes II-VIII Schools Trust (PLST).

18 EDUCATIONWORLD SEPTEMBER 2022