The government of Gujarat has raised the number of seats under Right to Education (RTE) by 75% for students who fall under the ST, SC, OBC and General categories and under an income slab of Rs 150,000 in cities and Rs 12,0,000 in rural areas. This will pave way for over one lakh students to secure admission under RTE as against 60,000 in the past year.
While experts have termed this move as a good decision, they, however, did not appreciate the move of fixing one income slab for all categories — Scheduled Tribe (ST), Scheduled Caste (SC), Other Backward Caste (OBC) and General.
Sharing the state government's action plan for the year, SP Chaudhary, Deputy Director for Primary Education, said, "This year, we are targeting 9,480 schools and have 10,5000 seats. This year, parents can also choose number of schools within six kilometers of distance and give priority as per their choice. Depending on availability, we will give admissions to the students(sic). We have also brought the category for children of martyr and BPL card holders ahead in merit list. Last year, we had received complaints regarding 536 fake applications and after scrutiny, we had canceled admissions of nearly 200 students."
Officials said five officers will sit in each receiving centre, along with a counselor. Navneet Mehta, District Education Officer, said, "Last year, we had received 13,000 applications and admitted 8,900 students. This year, we have 845 schools of which 298 are English medium schools, 549 are Gujarati medium, 86 Hindi medium, two Urdu medium, eight CBSE schools and an international board school to admit these students. This year, thorough verification of schools has been done and they have been intimated for the admissions as well so that parents do not face any issue." "We will have 40 receiving centres and will have a counselor at each centre, who will guide parents and help them fill up the form online/offline."
He further said that they are expecting nearly 20,000 applications from Ahmedabad city. "This year, in Ahmedabad rural, we will be having 31 receiving centres and for the first time, have brought out a document for parents that not only states address of receiving centres, but areas that it covers and mobile number of officials at receiving centres. Last year, 5,704 admissions were given in rural Ahmedabad and this year we are expecting to admit nearly 9,000 students, said Mahesh Mehta, district primary education officer (DPEO).
Commenting on the action plan, experts said, "Increase in intake is always a good number but what is the actual number of seats in private schools in Gujarat which are eligible?(sic) How do we get to know about it? Do they set their targets as per their budget? Also, government schools teachers should not be involved in this entire process. We cannot have RTE implementation at the cost of right of the children who go to government schools. Regarding counselor, we are afraid if these counselors are the once again from government schools(sic)."
RTE ACTION PLAN
- Training divided into four zones
- April 12: Ahmedabad
- April 13: Rajkot
- April 16: Surat
- April 17: Vadodara
- April 19-May 5: Form filling
- April 18-May 8: Submit documents
- May 14-May 22: Round 1 admissions
- May 28: Round 2
