Coimbatore: Members of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) on Thursday staged a sit-in at the office of chief educational officer, demanding the state government to release the list of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools and the number of seats available under 25% reservation for underprivileged children as per the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
For the second consecutive year after the online portal was launched by the school education department to ensure transparency in the admission process, the state government has failed to include the CBSE schools, forcing the parents to run from pillar to post to obtain application forms.
“While the department has managed to update details pertaining to all the matriculation and elementary schools in the state, none of the CBSE or ICSE schools has appeared in the list,” said MDMK youth wing secretary V Eswaran.
Pointing out that it was only after the launch of online portal admission process at most schools have become transparent, he said, “Transparency can be ensured only if the government includes CBSE and ICSE schools in the online portal.”
Though CBSE schools claim that they have been admitting students under the RTE Act on offline mode, Eswaran said admission was not easy at such schools.
Officials at the CEO office said they would forward the petition to the headquarters.