Mumbai: Parents of those students seeking admissions under the Right to Education (RTE) Act have been warned by the civic education department not to submit any fake documents.
The cheating deny the deserving students the benefit of free and compulsory education. As many as 3,532 students have been allotted admissions in the private unaided schools in the first phase of RTE admissions.
A total of 11,584 students have applied online to avail the benefit of free and compulsory education up to Class 8 this year. Of the total, 2,789 students have been allotted admissions under the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) board and 743 students have been allotted seats for other boards.
They will now have to submit their documents, which will be undergo a strict verification process by a designated committees appointed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The verification centres have been appointed to check for discrepancies and forgery in admissions. A civic education dept’s senior officer said, “We have had cases in the past of parents submitting fake documents indicating low financial income.
We have initiated the verification at these centres to prevent such acts of cheating.” Under the RTE Act, the students will be provided free education till Class 8 in private unaided schools. As per the act, 25 per cent seats are reserved for the students who have weak economic backgrounds.
Mahesh Palkar, BMC education officer, said, “The entire RTE admission process is online where we are allotting seats to students through the lottery system. We want to inform parents not to fake any documents so that students who are in need can avail of this benefit.”
This year, 7,491 seats are available under the RTE in 356 city schools. The admissions will happen till April 26. Farooque Nazir, a parent, said, “Very few students have secured admissions in the first round. We are waiting for the next round as without RTE, our children cannot study in private unaided schools, as the fees are high. We cannot afford it.”