Education department yet to announce date of first RTE lottery round; leaves parents anxious

THANE: With the dates of the first lottery round of the RTE process yet to be announced, an atmosphere of anxiety has already started brewing up among parents.

In the month-long process which ended on Saturday, Thane recorded 16,325 RTE applications against 13,400 vacant seats in the 620 registered schools across the rural and urban pockets of the district.

Of each of these regions, Navi Mumbai—which has around 2,562 vacant seats in its registered schools—topped the charts with 4,748 confirmed applications with 2,562 vacancies, while Thane city followed with a total of 3,404 confirmed applications as against 3,194 vacancies.

With the date of the lottery round still to be announced, parents of RTE aspirants across the district have begun anxiously waiting for their phones to buzz with the update from the education department.

D Salvi (37), a Vartak Nagar resident who has put in an application for his daughter’s admission in the first grade, said, “I cannot afford to send my daughter to a good school as my salary is meagre and school fees are high. Through RTE, she may manage to get into one of the three good schools in our area.” “I am waiting to receive a call from the education department. I have also asked my neighbour to keep checking the website in case the dates are out,” he added.

Meanwhile, education officials say that there is not need to worry as the seats are sufficient for the number of students, this year.

“Each applicant is expected to apply to more than one school which magnifies the number of applications. The schools with more vacant seats and fewer applications admit all students and the others use lotteries to give out seats. During the admission process, when a student confirms his or her admission in a school, the other applications get cancelled, leaving it vacant for others,” said an official from the ZP education office. “ If parents have any queries, they can reach us at our help desks,” said Kalpana Shinde, another official from the ZP education department.