Thane: Even though over 3,700
RTE seats have already been claimed in Thane
schools according to the
Right to Education online portal, education officials assert that these numbers are bound to shoot up after all schools update their round 1 inputs into the system by Tuesday.
Of the total 4,2678 RTE applications in Thane district this year, as many as 15,202 applications were considered for the first round of the lottery system.
However, only 5,702 of these applications, wherein there was less than a km between the applicant’s home and preferred school, were considered in the first round of the lottery system, of which around at least 65% have secured a seat so far. “While the website shows that of the 5,702 applications, 3707 have secured seats, these numbers are not fixed as there are many schools that are yet to update their school’s RTE round 1 on the website through their login. They have been given the deadline of April 17 to do so, after which we will get the actual numbers,” said an education officer from the
Thane Zilla Parishad.
This data, which is to be uploaded by each school, will include the list of applications selected in their school, the number of students who confirmed the seats, those who refrained from completing this procedure, those who rejected the seats because the sought admission in another school as well as the remaining vacant RTE seats in their school.
“After we gauge the number of vacant seats, we can set the date for the next lottery round which will include the applications of students who stay within 3 kilometres from the school they have chosen, and the admissions will begin thereafter,” she added.
These officials believe that their efforts to increase RTE admission has been clearly reflected in the increasing number of admitted students.
“Unlike the previous years, we not only added this school-home proximity criterion for the first round to ensure that the students didn’t have to pay for transportation, but also extended the deadline for the selected students to claim their seats thrice over the past month, to improve enrolment numbers,” the education officer said.
“Our education officer even sent out warning letters to the schools to refrain from asking students for any fees in any form as RTE education is for those from the poorer income families and is completely free. The effect of these initiatives is already showing as we have over 65% completed admissions in round 1,” she added.